


the name of the game

by dayurno



Series: the age of no regret [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Getting Together, M/M, Miscommunication, POV Alternating, Pining, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, Therapy Works!, the rest of the kandreil tag: someone is gonna die, this fic: of fun!, very slow burn. a candle light situation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:41:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 160,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27222139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dayurno/pseuds/dayurno
Summary: “And you cared about nothing,” Neil fills in the blanks by himself, forging the unbreakable image of Kevin and Andrew before Neil even knew them. “You wanted to be more like him.”When Andrew doesn’t answer, Neil continues, “His left hand. He always let you take care of it, too. He trusted you like that. Kevin— Kevin never doubted your ability to be gentle.”“He was naive,” Andrew grinds his teeth, “and stupid.”Neil’s response is so automatic he couldn’t have taken it back if he wanted to. “And you loved him for it.”Alternatively: Kevin's graduation confirms what they already knew — it's always easier to realize you love something after you lose it.
Relationships: Kevin Day/Andrew Minyard, Kevin Day/Neil Josten, Kevin Day/Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: the age of no regret [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2193789
Comments: 97
Kudos: 266





	1. landslide

**Author's Note:**

> how can i make it more obvious that i don't know fuck shit about poker?

“What were we before we were we? We must’ve been standing by the shoulder of a dirt road while the city burned. We must’ve been disappearing, like we are now.

Maybe in the next life we’ll meet each other for the first time—believing in everything but the harm we’re capable of."

**(VUONG, Ocean. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous: A Novel)**

Neil Josten had been getting worse and worse at bidding his goodbyes.

There was a time, once, where he’d been good at them — _thank you, you were amazing,_ he said, grim and pale like a ghost —, but he’s been made hollower since them; mellower; mulling the skin supposed to be harsh and softening it through the kicks and the punches. The wicked way of the world has rattled his cage harshly enough to get Neil to come out of it, but the light, he quickly came to realize, is just as scary: to be the one who stayed instead of the one who strayed is just as scary as empty locker rooms, the backseat of police cars, scars that don’t wash out. He'd rather quit. He'd rather pluck his eyes out of its sockets than to watch a piece of him walk out of the door once more, though he reckons it will happen again, and again, and again.

It hadn't stung so fiercely when the girls graduated, but then again, the girls were not Kevin.

Kevin's Charleston apartment nearing the main road is a neatly organized mess of polished brickwork and multiple tones of brown, the living room spacious enough to fit two of their college dorms in it with ostentatious leg room. It wasn't luxurious, but it was well kept — the living room ended in a hall that branched to three bedrooms and a final bathroom, yellowed out wooden floorboards under their feet, and the decoration was as generic as it was clearly picked out by someone that was neither of the place's residents. The high ceilings were just tall enough to make sure neither Kevin or Jean Moreau — Kevin's unsurprising roommate, even if Neil keeps asking himself _when did this happen?_ — would wake up in trauma-induced frenzies with the idea that they were once again in the claustrophobic Nest, and the rug on the door was regal in its muted gray color, no welcoming wishes stitched onto it. The apartment was a clumsy excuse of a home made by two men who had no idea what home felt or looked like.

The only aspect of personalization beyond their bedrooms that truly felt like it had been their idea to have was a framed USC Trojans' jersey, Jean's name printed under the big and bold number 29 — an allusion to Kevin's 2 and Renee's 9 — signed by all of his ex-teammates. Next to it, one of Kevin's several bright orange jerseys stood, perfectly clean and absent from stains or customizations aside from Wymack's barely readable signature near the collar. Together, side by side, they were an act of defiance; the symbol of their quiet but fierce resistance, forged out of companionship and the inexplicable urge to move forward.

The elephant in the living room was its large windowpane, just big enough to invade the room with a browning sunset as Kevin knelt in front of the television rack and organized his Exy DVDs and tapes from most to least recent. The light gets caught on his hair — longer now than it has ever been, almost enough to tie back — and loses the fight against the unrelenting blackness of it, though the messy ends had bits of dazzle pushing through them, creating the illusion of light brown hair. Next to Kevin's knelt frame, Andrew stood with an unlit cigarette stick hanging from his lips, having been given clear orders to not smoke in the apartment. His hair, tossed and turned and messy to no end, created a halo of fiery sunset around the ever-tanning skin of his face, an aggressive type of softness that could only be born from chaos and circumstance.

Andrew peeked over Kevin's shoulder with disinterest, hands pressed to the rack, but said and did nothing about Kevin’s — self-admittedly neurotic — organizing. Their quietness was familiar; good; a prayer Neil had been let into a thousand times before even if Kevin's sporadic mumbles cut through the silence every now and then, sweetly meaningless. Robin and Aaron, from the other side of the room, poked at Jean's houseplants in concealed interest, murmuring about this and that, while Nicky lounged on the sofa with a lazy set to his features, curled up blissful and tender under a particularly bright sunbeam. Neil wished to join him for a minute, but he would lose the view of Kevin's broad back working beneath the sun, and he was too afraid that he'd never remember it as perfectly as he experienced it if he looked away.

Jean is sat behind the kitchen counter Neil has leant his hip against, reading glasses sitting atop of his nose as he skims through a book mindlessly, keeping one eye in the mess of Foxes that has become his recently moved-in living room. He didn't seem particularly thrilled about their help, given neither he or Kevin had much to move in anyways, and though Neil could understand that, he would have stormed into this apartment regardless even if Jean had profusely denied their help. Be that as it may, Jean seemed pleased enough to remain silent and trace Kevin's silhouette with a wary glance every once in a while, as if to check he was still there and hadn't been taken away.

Their new team, the Charleston Stingrays, were a fairly ranked professional team with a talented lineup and very little structure to keep up with it. They had snagged a contract with Kevin by the time his senior year had just started, the word that Kevin Day did not want to stray too far from South Carolina flying around like a hornet, and their offer had been mulled over enough for Kevin to accept it only a month after it had been proposed. They were ranked high enough that the salary would keep Kevin alive and breathing, and their room for improvement was attractively vacant for a man whose interest shifted from being the undeniable, quick-coming best to working his way up until there was no denial of to whom the top belonged to. It was a deliciously well-timed deal, and Jean Moreau being in the lineup was just the cherry on top that made Kevin sign the contract and move into an apartment three hours away from Neil, Andrew, his father and Palmetto.

Not that Neil had been expecting anything else. Kevin was too big to tie down in just one city, and they'd been lucky he chose to remain in South Carolina for the sake of his still-developing relationship with Wymack. A three hours drive is not even that long of a time, really — they had traveled for longer for games they hadn't won. Kevin was basically next door; he wouldn't vanish just because he and Neil did not share the same roof anymore. He wouldn’t disappear; not when Kevin has proven time and again that he is the opposite of amnesia.

The stingray plushie awkwardly tucked between dark-brown (the darkest color they could get that wasn't black) pillows on the couch is not a fox, but then again, Kevin is. Aaron is no longer the backliner he tries to push through in scrimmages — Jean is — but he had been, once, and Neil has been trying to wrap his head around the fact that the past doesn't stop existing once you take your eyes off of it. He thought he could get better at it if he didn't think so often that Kevin had vanished from his and Andrew's side to reappear by Jean's, almost as if he had never left it at all, but that was not a thought Neil was willing to battle today. Today, Neil allowed himself to kneel into the sunlit lethargy of Kevin's new living room, a world away from his heart's hard places, and just let it be.

After being done with most of the moving boxes, Kevin and Neil share an orange while leaning against the counter, and Neil keeps walking into the thought that he is happy to be alive. It is a nice thought — nowadays, he has more of those. He wonders what goes on in Kevin’s mind, in that aspect; how much healing he has been doing, how much of it he has told Neil about. Kevin is sometimes so strong and so quiet that it can be almost easy to forget that he is still suffering.

"Are you well?" the man of the hour asks as he pops a slice of orange into his mouth, fatally boyish as he sneaks behind Jean to reach for another orange from their fruit bowl.

 _Are you well?_ is a mellower version of _Are you okay?_ that Neil found much easier to answer to, if only because it is often Kevin's voice who asks it. "Yes," Neil answers, watching him peel the orange with able hands, "are you?"

Kevin hums, which is neither here nor there, but it is nonetheless an answer. His shirt — mossy green and oversized even for his large frame — is too old and too loved to ever be seen outside of the walls of this apartment, but Neil curls his humanly hands around the memory all the same, trying to juice out every small detail, every last flicker of light, for when he inevitably loses it. Andrew settles on one of the stools from the other side of the counter, giving them his back, and Neil devours the sight for a tiny lifetime before turning his gaze to where Robin approached their small huddle of men with a short grin, stout but firm.

She slips herself between Kevin and Jean, avoiding to touch the latter by slumping against Kevin's shoulder as if a sloth, their arms intertwined like the carefully braided strands of her hair. "It's a cool apartment," she points out, speaking to no one in particular. Robin doesn’t show physical affection often; Neil wonders if it’s because she’s scared of forgetting what Kevin is supposed to feel like under her hands.

They were very dramatic people, but more often than not they had reasons to be. There was a quiet understanding in the air that goodbye almost always meant forever for people like them.

"Thinking of moving out already?" Andrew asks without turning around to look at her, running a lazy hand through his hair. Neil’s eyes follow the movement luxuriously, if only to give his mind something else to focus on.

Robin chuckles a short, dry laugh. "It depends on how much you plan to smoke in our dorm for the rest of the year."

Neil can't see him, but he bets on his life that Andrew is rolling his eyes by the way his back muscles tense up and relax shortly after. "I will do it until the secondhand smoke kills us all."

"Andrew," Kevin reprimands with a slight furrow of his eyebrows, though he doesn't add anything else to get his point across.

Andrew blows air out of his nose soundly, bored as can be, but seems to understand Kevin’s unspoken complaint perfectly. There is some deep-running telepathy between Kevin and Andrew that Neil will never understand the full scope of. "Who will you give your lectures to now that you won't live with me anymore?" he asks with lazy viciousness, more bark than bite at this point of their lives.

"No one," Kevin replies, "because Jean is a reasonable person. You should try it one day, maybe you'll like it."

The blond moves his hand dismissively over the top of his own head. "No, I don't reckon I will."

Robin mouths Andrew's words with exaggerated but comic flare, and Neil bites back a huffed laugh. It wasn't the joke that was funny as much as it was that Robin was making it, about Andrew, in a room full of friendly faces. Neil thinks getting used to this might have made him too greedy; too spoiled.

A year from now, most of these people will disappear — the cousins will graduate and then follow their own separate paths. Nicky would wait for summer to end and classes to start to leave for Germany, but maybe Andrew wouldn’t, given he still has to choose a team to sign with and hates the bureaucracy of moving in and out. Aaron would head off to a teaching hospital as a resident, but there is no telling where he’ll choose to be, only that he will follow Katelyn wherever she goes. Robin will stay, of course; she still has three more years of college to go. Neil will graduate in her last summer as a junior, and she will return to Palmetto in the fall for her fourth year alone. And then what?

There is no good answer to that. There is no telling what will happen to them once they graduate, and Neil, who has only been himself for the past two years and is used to improvising since, doesn’t quite know what to make out of it yet.

Maybe his thoughts show on his face, because Kevin reaches a hand behind Robin and Jean to smack him on the back of his head, hardly strong enough to hurt but still a warning. “Why did you do that?” Neil complains, bringing a hand to rub protectively at the spot.

“Pay attention to the conversation,” Kevin simply says, obnoxiously bossy. Neil is about to retort something equally as rude when he realizes even Andrew seems to be paying attention, now sitting across them with his back turned to the living room. Robin slips out of their group as soon as she sees the Poker cards in Kevin’s hands, and heads to the couch where Nicky and Aaron seem to be having a surprisingly quiet round of their usual bickering.

Jean considers him for the first time since they got here, thick eyebrows furrowing ever so slightly. “Go,” he says, motioning to Andrew’s side of the counter. His accent is still there, though it has lost its foreign edge over the years, sounding more like a dialect than a French man clumsily rolling syllables off his tongue. Neil wonders if Jean has made the conscious decision of keeping it after leaving Evermore, knowing he could once again speak his native language, but doesn’t linger on the thought.

Neil settles beside Andrew with a somewhat confused frown, observing as Kevin deals Andrew and Jean the cards but doesn’t look particularly interested in playing himself, perched to the latter’s shoulder like a pirate’s parrot, peeking over his cards. Jean lets him, unbothered by it, and Neil tries to do the same to Andrew, who offers him the stinky eye. Neil knows nothing about Poker — all his years on the run have given him very little time to learn it, and though his mother occasionally visited casinos, she would never let him gamble or take too long to get whatever she needed from whoever she looked for. Neil was as lost as Kevin seemed to be.

Even then, as he watches their quiet conversation, Neil walks into the thought that Kevin and Jean had a language of their own: one that no one else could understand, one that they freely spoke even in mixed company. It wasn’t French, not quite — it was a mixture of gesture and mumbles, a quiet understanding settling through them as noiselessly as the wind, an idiom only the other could translate. It was unsettling to watch; whereas Kevin had always been a lively, constant noise by Andrew’s side, by Jean’s he was soft spoken and close to mute, their understanding doing most of the job as language existed in their hands, legs, mouths, eyes. It was a living, breathing thing they shared with each other and no one else. Andrew looked like he’d be sick, but maybe only Neil noticed.

“Where did you even learn how to play Poker?” Neil murmurs, leaning his elbows on the counter and trying to dissipate the fog that settled between the two sides of the table.

Andrew glances at him for a quick moment. “Juvie.”

Neil turns to Jean. “And you?”

Jean doesn’t look up from his cards as he says it. “Jeremy.”

“Oh,” Kevin hums in surprise, “I thought you had learned it from Thea. Explains why I didn’t recognize this version of the game; she never played fair.”

A hint of a laugh tugged at the corner of Jean’s lips, but it was smothered away soon after, hidden behind the deck of cards on his hands. Neil realizes this is the closest he’s ever gotten to seeing a genuine smile from Jean, directed at Kevin of all people, and something claws at his stomach in warning. “That’s because Thea learned it in Houston,” Jean tells him, “and Texans love to gamble.”

“It is illegal to gamble in Texas,” Neil points out, more to make conversation than anything else.

This time Jean huffs an amused laugh, curt but realer than anything Neil has ever seen from him. “Exactly,” he says, placing a bunch of cards in the empty space between him and Andrew. Neil had no idea of what they meant or what they were supposed to do, given the fact that Andrew’s face gave away no context clues to figure it out. It was impossible to know if what Jean had done was good or bad for his game. “There are casinos on native lands, though,” Jean adds after a short moment of silence, “because they don’t abide to gambling laws.”

Neil thinks of Allison, stuck in Texas due to her position as a backliner for the San Antonio Stallions, and decides that this information would be taken with him to the grave. She had enough gambling going on as it was with the Foxes and their compulsive betting, money being traded through online services instead of hands now that they’re mostly away from each other, and she did not need anymore of it. “I have no idea how this game works,” Neil confesses after a few minutes of Jean and Andrew thoughtfully staring at their own cards.

Kevin blinks a few times, seemingly sharing the sentiment. “It makes no sense.”

“Any game that’s not Exy makes no sense to you,” Andrew replies with his usual amount of indifference, though neither Kevin nor Neil could tell which of them he was talking to. As if on cue, he clarifies: “I am talking to both of you.”

“But it really makes no sense,” Kevin continues, unruffled by Andrew’s comment. “When is the betting part supposed to happen?”

Andrew’s eyes flicker to him. “I do not bet.”

“Neither do I,” Jean states. He plays another move — or something, really, Neil doesn’t know a thing about this game — before offering to Kevin, in a low voice, “I can teach you later, if you want.”

“God forbids Kevin from getting another addiction,” Andrew boredly intervenes. He takes a few cards from the ones displayed on the surface of the counter, and Neil has no idea why. “He does not need it.”

Jean purses his lips, but Kevin begrudgingly agrees. “He’s right, I better not,” he huffs out, crossing his arms behind Jean. “It’s not fun anyways. The two of you look bored.” It’s almost redundant — Jean and Andrew always look bored. Neil doubts they’d break out of it even if they were engaged in the most exciting game of Poker of the century.

“Don’t be unpleasant,” is all Andrew says, resuming the game as if nothing was ever said. “If you children are bored, simply leave the table like Robin did. Your emotional support is clearly not needed.”

Kevin makes a face. “This is my house.”

“And so you can go anywhere else you want, isn’t that amazing?” he replies, laying a few more cards in front of Jean without looking up at Kevin. “Take him on a tour. I don’t care. Go.”

Kevin looks like he wants to complain some more, but all Neil does is send him a pointed look and snatch one of the housewarming gifts the Stingrays had sent, a bottle of whiskey he wouldn’t let Kevin even touch now that he’s been on a mission to get sober. He doesn’t check to see if Kevin is following as he pushes through the balcony door, but the padding sound of his feet comes a few minutes later, careful to not make any noise even in his own apartment. Neil wonders if he’ll ever let go of his sneaky habits, built from years of making himself as small and soundless as possible next to Riko’s side, and is unsure of what the answer to that question might be. Even then, Kevin has an obnoxiously orange sweatshirt on to match the one Neil himself is wearing, and the brightness of it makes him hard to lose from sight.

When Kevin makes a point out of sitting almost a full foot away from Neil and the bottle, he rolls his eyes and places it to his other side. Violet hour is upon them now, bluer as night washes over the sunset like water to the shore, and the color touches Kevin’s every trait, a miracle of light. There are one too many things Neil would like to tell him, but words are always a type of mutilation — they never say what they mean, and humanity has struggled with them enough to know that sometimes things are better left unsaid. He wants to tell Kevin all about this new version of them, about his new contract, about the celebrity he’ll be, but realizes mid-thought that Kevin may not care about, or want to hear it. He keeps quiet, then.

Kevin, being Kevin, is physically unable to do the same. He huddles closer to Neil after the bottle is not between them anymore, and presses his knees to the tall ledge keeping them from falling down the twelve stories under, wrapping his arms around them. The balcony is still empty — no chair, no table, not even decoration; all there is to it is a handful of Jean’s houseplants that seemed to need more sun than the others, leaving them to sit on the ground like overgrown children. With Kevin’s knees pulled to his chest, he looked as small as he did when he was ten years old, watching Neil’s father gut a man during a little league scrimmage.

How far they’ve come from that stuffed little room, and how little has Kevin changed.

“The Stingrays,” Neil says after a while. It’s not really making conversation, given it’s only a name, but that’s usually all Kevin needs to latch himself onto a lecture. He likes to talk, and Neil sometimes likes to listen; they work that way.

“They have potential,” Kevin hums, pulling on the hood of his sweatshirt absentmindedly. “They’re considering trading Guilliams for the Redneck’s Sampaio. She’s a better dealer, but Guilliams is already integrated in the team. It could mess up the dynamics even more with my addition. I told the coach it would be easier if they were traded in my first week, so it could be two birds, one stone, but she’s still considering it.” He pauses for a second. “She listens to me. Her, and the captain.”

Kevin’s team, the Stingrays, had two women for captain and Coach, a somewhat still foreign concept to professional Exy. They’re known — as the Trojans are in college-level Exy — for their sportsmanship and easygoing lineup, though it’s clear that their emotional bond has hindered them from winning before. Neil wonders what Kevin, ruthless as he is, could do for such a team, but the answer was obvious: they needed an outsider’s input. The Stingrays’ lineup barely changed in the last three years, few additions or retirements here and there, and Kevin’s presence would shake and break them up to their very core, but only so that light could come in. Even Jean, one of the most brooding players in the world of professional Exy, seemed to blend in with them well enough after a year of playing for the Stingrays.

Neil had looked up their lineup the same afternoon Kevin got the offer, and though a good deal of their players looked promising, their captain was the one that caught his eyes. Yonah Abeles had played as a striker for Penn State before being snatched by the Stingrays on her senior year, and in spite of her stats not being the most impressive, her leadership skills made up for it: she guided Penn State well enough to have two championships under her belt as a college captain, a feat only Riko Moriyama — may he rest in _piss_ — had conquered before. The Stingrays did not ooze trophies and opulence, but the team was noticeably better under her leadership, and their rankings showed that. Exy was a fickle industry Yonah managed to put a leash around and call hers despite being only twenty-five and having an entire career ahead of her; she was all that Neil aspired to be as the Foxes’ captain.

“Abeles listens to all her players,” Kevin continues when he realizes Neil has no input to give out. “She’s got a harsher version of Jeremy's teamwork and a dash of Dan's stubbornness. She told me she wouldn’t let me slack off because of my _condition_ ” — his fingers curl in air quotations — “as the Son of Exy. It sounded like she was talking about a disease."

"Arrogance is a disease," Neil hums. He knows Kevin wouldn't talk so much about her if he didn't admire her in some way, and even then, Kevin doesn't seem quite too bothered about her words either — that's how Neil knows he is thrilled to work with Yonah.

Kevin ignores him. "I know they've signed a new goalkeeper," he continues, then pauses for a second before saying, as if in a whispered secret, "River Yazzie."

At that, Neil raises an eyebrow. River Yazzie's name was tied to Andrew's for their similarly timed additions to their respective teams and the fact that they shared both a position and a supposed problematic behavior. But whereas Andrew managed to disappear from the scrutiny of the media as he settled between the Foxes, a team of problematic ragtags where he blended in well, River remained causing trouble for the perfectly balanced Penn State by simply existing as themself. Neil remembers reading the articles about a supposedly genderless Exy player whose only answer regarding their identity was that they did not need gender to play and, likewise, did not want to discuss such topics.

River had not-Andrew's-anymore sharp grin in a non-synthetic way and long, dark hair they were known for refusing to cut. Neil thought it was a fair condition when the word got around — River's hair represented their culture, and it did not hinder their position as a goalkeeper, so there was no need to make them cut it.

The Foxes had never played a game against River, result of unfortunately organized brackets and an unspecified injury that kept the goalkeeper from playing for the entire season last year, but if Kevin was bringing them up, it's because he thought they were good. "I thought they would never come back to Exy," Neil tentatively answers, dragging a finger down his own ankle in thought. "Do you know what the injury was?"

Kevin huffs in impatience. "Yonah wouldn't tell me, and even less Coach Myoui. If it kept them from playing for a year, it must have been an Achilles tendon rupture or something of the likes." Neil flinches at the thought. Kevin waits a second to continue: "Either way, they are going to play for the Stingrays. Yonah thinks I should pick them up from the airport so we can," he makes a face, "bond."

"Because you're the newbies," Neil offers.

"Yes." Kevin motions dismissively. "It's another problematic goalkeeper to add to my list."

At that, Neil laughs a bit, more like a sharp tug at the hollow of his chest — "You're collecting them like baseball cards."

He huffs. "I'm pretty sure River wouldn't want to see me waiting for them at the airport, anyways. Goalkeepers don't seem to like me a lot."

"Well," Neil ponders, "that's debatable."

Kevin schools his face into carefully crafted nonchalance. "Anyways, that's all there is to the Stingrays. Jean refuses to tell me anything else about them; says he won't feed my 'gossip tendencies' anymore than he already did in the Nest."

It's such a funny thing to imagine; Kevin as a gossip _._ Neil supposes word got around too easily back in the Nest, with so little people in such a tight knit group, but the mental image of teenager Kevin Day piling up gossip after gossip to tell Jean Moreau about over dinner at the cafeteria is bittersweetly wishful. He wonders how many of these small pockets of joy Kevin got to forge over the years, stolen moments where he was Jean's and Jean was Kevin's and they belonged to each other much more than they could ever belong to Riko, and Neil doesn't know why it stings so viciously to think that there might have not been many of them. During Neil's time in Evermore Jean hadn't been anything even close to soft, but maybe that wasn't his default — maybe once Jean was just a teenager, careless and excitable, listening to Kevin's gossiping with the simple amusement of someone who hasn't tipped over the edge yet and won't for some time still. The thought breaks his heart.

“You’re not that bad of a gossip,” he settles for one of his safer thoughts, pushing away everything else. Neil stretches his arms out for a second, pensively staring at the now-dark sky, and reasons, “Jean just hasn’t met Allison yet.”

“I am not a gossip,” Kevin complains, but Neil thinks he is all the same, in that extremely Kevin way of his that makes life difficult to go without once you had it in the first place. It’s a language of his own, one he teaches to the people he loves — or tolerates, Neil doesn’t want to assume — and one that could never be spoken by anyone else. Jean was the first to learn it, but he was not the only one; Neil refuses to think he was. He wants to live in a world where Kevin Day loves him, even if just a little bit; even if almost nothing at all.

“You are,” Neil huffs. They sit in silence, then; two blemishes on the skin of the night, orange blurs with nothing but loose ends, holding their own against the dark vastness together. Neil doesn't know what he's going to do without Kevin, but he should start figuring it out soon. "Hey," he says after a while, tapping his fingers on the empty space between them, "tell me something true."

It's a thread offered for Kevin to pull, and Neil doesn't expect him to take it. He should know, by now, to not expect anything from anyone.

But Kevin, who has been getting better; who has been putting in his weight in cutting through the Nest's learned behaviors, laughs with a tiny, miraculous sound, a fever dream in all that he is, and Neil understands — not for the first time — why so many men have put Kevin's safety above their own before.

Kevin’s laughter is a high pitched wheeze that’s as squeaky as it is childish — his cheeks, still bursting at their seams with childhood, rise to meet the sharp corner of his lips at the same pace a single dimple appears to dent the left side of his face, terrifyingly genuine and so, so rare. Neil wants to bunch up the superhuman light that spills from Kevin’s smile and bury his face in it like Achilles dipping into the River Styx, if only to inhale the invulnerability of it and let it heal every cut and every bruise that has ever been dragged over Neil’s skin.

"Okay," Kevin agrees. He mulls it over on his head for a few moments before belting: "I'm terrified of animals."

Neil's eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. "No way."

Kevin avoids his eyes, clearly embarrassed, but stubbornly pushes through it, "Yes way."

"Cows?"

"Yes."

"Horses?"

"Yes."

"Goats?"

"Yes. Do you only know farm animals?" he mumbles, training his eyes to the night sky so as to avoid Neil's face.

"Kevin Day is scared of _animals_ ," Neil utters, enchanted. "Son of Exy, number #1 striker in the world, and you're scared of cows."

Kevin scowls. "I've never seen one before. The only animal I've ever gotten to see in real life was a dog, in Dublin, years ago."

"So dogs are cool?"

He hesitates. Neil fights the urge to burst into laughter. "You're scared of _dogs._ "

"The big ones," Kevin mutters, shoving hard against Neil's shoulder. "Get out of my face. You asked and I delivered. Shut up."

He doesn't ask for a truth in return, Neil's mind absently points out. Kevin never does; never did. He values Neil's entitlement to his secrets, even when it meant putting his own safety at risk — even if it meant lying to Andrew, the one person Kevin could never lie to. It's a comforting feeling, at last, to know a part of Neil was so fiercely guarded. "Next break," Neil tells him, "we'll visit a farm. One of those big ones, I'm sure Allison can arrange it. And then you'll have nowhere to run off to and you'll be forced to see a farm animal in real life."

Kevin crosses his arms over his chest, the corners of his lips tugged downwards. "Absolutely not. Horses can crush a man to death, did you know? There's no way in hell."

Neil motions dismissively at him, close enough to Kevin's face for it to be obnoxious. "Andrew will be there. He won't let you get crushed to death," he reasons, knowing Andrew's presence, to Kevin, is basically an essential need.

"I don't know about that." Kevin rolls his eyes. Sometimes he is so stupid it's almost amusing.

"You don't really think Andrew protected you from the mafia for years to let you die because of a horse now," Neil replies in half-hearted disbelief.

"I'm sure he wouldn't be unwilling to try," he hums at last, a hint of a blush pandering to the planes and hills of his brown skin. Neil fidgets with the hem of his sweatshirt to keep himself from reaching out and tracing the warm spot in Kevin's cheekbone, just under the queen tattoo, but it's quite a silly longing to have and hold back from. For once Neil wishes he had Andrew's unwavering assertiveness, because he knows Andrew would not hold himself back if he wanted to grab Kevin's face by his chin and feel the blush under his fingertips; he would not deny himself such a small luxury if Kevin did not object to it.

But Neil is not Andrew, and he has no business fidgeting to keep himself from reaching out to Kevin. He knows better than to want something that is not his to want. “You’re just trying to keep me around,” Kevin offers his best attempt at a tease, “but don’t fret. No way in hell I am letting the Foxes slack off just because I’m not there anymore. I will be back to watch you practice.”

 _Don’t,_ Neil wants to say. He wants to tell Kevin that he deserves better than the fragment of a life he got to have in Palmetto, that he should get a dog he could walk in the mornings and start allowing himself dessert after meals, that Kevin deserves a big city with endless sunshine and a lovely suburban home and to be loved like one loves a child; unconditional and restlessly, in the way neither of them have ever known.

Words fail him, though. They always do. “I can’t stand you,” Neil half-heartedly mutters.

Kevin is nonplussed, but a dimpled smile sits at the corner of his mouth, elastic and easy to wipe out. “I don’t care.”

Neil doesn’t answer, doesn’t breathe; a genuine smile from Kevin is so fragile it could go away with just a breath. He shoves at Kevin’s shoulder out of the simple need to touch, and when he pulls back, his hands smell of Kevin’s skin and love, obscene amounts of it. Time to go, then — if Neil is thinking of love, it is time to leave. That was always Mary Hatford’s rule of thumb, wasn’t it?

He stays, though, because Mary Hatford is a ghost and Kevin doesn’t make it easy to leave: another thing he never did. Kevin asked Neil to stay once and it was enough for Neil to plant his feet on the ground and never move again — he doesn’t know what he would do if Kevin simply tugged him down once more and asked Neil to stay with his hands. Neil suspects he would willingly let himself be held down forever and ever and ever, until Andrew came dashing through the door to drag him out. How nice it felt to have both someone to make him stay and someone to make him leave.

Robin is the one to tell them to come inside again, her head tilted to the side and her braids falling over her shoulders as she softly called, “Andrew asked me to get you two.”

“Andrew should stop getting you to do the things he doesn’t want to do,” Kevin tells her, a newfound fondness in his eyes he can’t quite smother away quick enough as he turns to meet her gaze. “He is not the boss of you.”

She laughs, throwing her head back. “I wanted to see it for myself,” she confesses as if in a prayer, “it’s not usual for the two of you to be in the same room without trying to kill each other.”

“Rude,” Neil calls without turning around, dreading the stars and the moon now that they were in company. He’d forgotten that time was rushing them to leave Charleston and Kevin behind the more they stayed. “You didn’t even get the worst of the Day-Josten antagonism.”

“There was no antagonism,” Kevin reprimands, quietly moving away to offer Robin a space between the two of them. She joins their observing spot with an appreciative hum, the decorative charms and beads of her braids making a sound alike to Christmas bells. Braids pulled into two pigtails, Robin almost looks her age. “I trained you every night for an entire year.”

Neil scoffs, though the memory lives fresh and lingering on his heart; a tattoo that refreshes itself with time, a bowl that is never empty. “Your version of training is antagonizing.”

“I will not stand for this slander,” he huffs, though he leans closer to Robin’s orbit by nature, pulled in like calm waters to a lighthouse. They looked like family in ways Neil wouldn't be able to explain: more than once he found himself thinking about their similarities. _Kevin’s mini me_ is what Aaron had called Neil once. That spot is not his anymore; it’s Robin’s. “Get out of my house.”

“Only if you push me out of this ledge,” Neil hums, nonplussed.

“And there you go again with the bickering,” Robin says, leaning back on her hands. “Told you.”

“I hate that you’re turning into Andrew,” Kevin tells her matter-of-factly, though neither of the two believed his words for a second. He turns his face to the sky once more, “I’m terrified of what they’ll make of you when I’m not there to intervene.”

Robin laughs, but it’s quite an unhappy sound; one to match the unhappy feeling of being reminded Kevin will not be rejoining them at PSU this year. “Don’t worry, I’m holding onto your promise of letting me spend Christmas break here.”

“ _Well,_ ” Kevin starts, “tell that to Neil, who wants to take me to a farm.”

Neil bursts into laughter. He’s been doing that more nowadays.

Robin’s head turns to him abruptly. “With Kevin’s fragile complexion? He’s not made for the wild,” she gasps in over exaggerated surprise, “whatever will he do without face masks and fluffy robes?”

“Hey,” the man in question protests, “I lived in West Virginia for all of my life.”

“And _still_ ,” Neil replies. “You’re like a seventy year old rich madam, Kevin.”

“Am not.”

“Like Meryl Streep in _Devil Wears Prada_!” Robin chimes in.

“Are too,” Neil insists.

Kevin opens his mouth to answer when Andrew’s voice cuts through the atmosphere like a cannonball, unrelenting and stable. “Don’t you three look cozy,” he dryly says from the balcony door, his entire frame leant against it. The sight of black jeans and a black turtleneck, sometimes, is enough to make Neil wonder if he made Andrew up in his head.

“Jealous?” Robin asks, tipping her head back to look at Andrew with a smile. She’s a bit cheekier with him than she is with the others, the result of his unmistakable protectiveness towards her, and Andrew scowls at it as if on cue. Neil isn’t fooled; the PSU sweatshirt Robin is wearing is most definitely one of Andrew’s.

“Exhilarated by the sudden calmness my life becomes when the three of you are out of my sight,” he simply bites back, toneless. The idea of Andrew being exhilarated about something is unusual enough to make Neil laugh. “Get in. Moreau’s about to kick Nicky out of the apartment.”

Unsurprisingly, Kevin stands up quick as lightning at the mention of Jean. Robin and Neil watch as he makes his way towards Andrew, who is prone to being difficult by principle and refuses to give him the room to leave. “I wonder what’s gotten your pretty face looking so sour,” Andrew hums, unbothered. The fucker would check his nails if they weren’t perpetually boring to look at, bitten down and blank.

With Kevin and Andrew, it’s always a hit or miss — any interaction can lead into an argument ever since they patched up their relationship under Betsy Dobson’s guidance. Tonight, though, it’s a hit: Kevin rolls his eyes almost fondly, makes Neil heart stutter a heartbeat, and leans down to antagonize Andrew with a cheeky “If you wanted my undivided attention, you could’ve just asked for it.”

“I want nothing from you,” Andrew levels him with a glare, but walks over to give Kevin passage. When he doesn’t budge from his position, Robin and Neil are all but obliged to follow him inside.

It was, of course, a fallacy — Jean hasn’t even moved from his spot behind the counter, though now there is a somewhat bitter undertone to his pursed lips. Kevin goes straight to him, asking something under his breath as he opens the fridge and pulls out a bottle of water, and Jean shakes his head in amusement, face falling blank once more. It is particularly interesting, the reality of their closeness. Like this, they look according to the role they played in each other’s lives: Jean as Kevin’s first protector and Kevin as the man who learned an entire language for Jean so they could retaliate against Riko’s clear orders.

 _“Jean didn’t speak English, at first,”_ Kevin had murmured once in Neil’s Sophomore year, small hints of feeling shifting behind the shiny layer of his eyes. They were more cerulean than green that night, and that close they looked the exact same color as the duvet in Neil’s bed, a childhood-smelling comfort that he couldn’t let go of if he tried. Neil had thought, then, that if he could pluck the color of Kevin’s eyes out of its sockets, it would feel like two dainty blueberries between his index finger and thumb, smelling of innocence Neil never truly had and Kevin never fully lost. _“But we always spoke_ ,” he’d continued, “ _we never ignored each other. When we were in the same room, even if I couldn’t understand French and he couldn’t understand English, we would gesture and huff and make faces until the other understood. Sometimes I think we never stopped doing that.”_

Neil doesn’t remember what he answered, then. It was one of the few nights he allowed himself to get drunk, and the memory is hazy like sunlight through the bottom of a pool, softened around the edges in a blurry dream. Kevin could’ve said anything, then; Neil would’ve agreed without a second thought. The bastard.

“Hey, pizza’s fine with you, right?” Nicky asks from the land of the living, gently moving a palm side to side in front of Neil’s face.

Neil blinks, wondering when he settled on the couch. “Yeah,” he answers easily. The others are yet to make peace with the fact that Neil will eat just about anything if it’s edible. “Yeah, fine with me.”

"You're spacing out a lot," Nicky hums absentmindedly, his short attention span betraying him as he distracts himself out of his own sentence by tapping away at his phone.

Neil doesn't answer.

Dinner would've been nice if Neil didn't obsessively track every single interaction between Kevin and Jean with the intensity of a murderer sizing up his victim. More than once Andrew elbows his side to make him stop, but it's to no use — to see them like this, as if _friends_ , is disorienting at best. Kevin and Jean were not supposed to be friends; they were barely survivors as they were. Neil can't help but wonder what's there to love in the other if not the decade of shared trauma.

The ghost of Mary Hatford curling at the back of his ear calls out hypocrisy, but that is a mental place Neil doesn't go to much nowadays. It's an unfounded comparison: she'd been more to Neil than someone who understood his pain; she'd been his commander first and his mother second. Kevin and Jean were different because, in spite of the gritty reality of the Nest, they had been able to form a real, fraternal bond in a way that Neil and his mother hadn't. Neil had belonged _to_ Mary, but Kevin had belonged _with_ Jean. They were brothers in arms and legs and eyes and mouth; the years together forged them into physical extensions of each other. If someone struck Jean, Kevin would feel the blow.

Maybe what bothered him the most wasn't the prospect of Kevin and Jean being friends, but the realization that Neil and Kevin were not as good at being friends as they were. Where Jean met Kevin with open arms, unyielding and spread wide like a sunflower, Neil met Kevin in hushed words, hands held back from touching, the tension between them keeping the spine of their relationship straight and strong. The intimacy was there, but it wasn't friendship: it was a lion, ancient and dormant in their chests, tamed only by the small pieces of themselves they fed it so the lion doesn't turn on them with a vengeance and an open jaw. Neil's friendship with Kevin felt like a lifetime of misplaced romanticism that they had no idea of how to translate into a platonic relationship.

On an Exy court they were deadly, but now that vacant space beside Kevin is Jean's for the taking. The thought alone made Neil want to flip the table over, but he didn't want to stain Kevin's new carpet.

Saying his goodbyes is a dream-like haze Neil prompts himself into forgetting as soon as he slips into the passenger seat of the Maserati, already feeling the grip of missing around his heart as he recounts how adamant Kevin was — _is, Abram, he's not dead,_ a voice suspiciously alike Andrew's tells him — about having shotgun, claiming the back seat cramped his legs. Neil never knew if that was true or just pure bullshit from Kevin's part, and he almost made Andrew turn the car around and back to Charleston so he could ask.

How would Andrew even react to that request? Neil's getting too soft; too sludgy; too slow on his toes. Getting what you want when you ask for it is a filthy vice that has been corrupting him ever since he first stepped into Palmetto, because now Neil deals with the aftermath of wanting Kevin there, with them, and not being able to have him.

 _You want too much,_ his mother once said. _Don't be ungrateful. Aren't you happy you're alive?_

Kevin never told Neil he wanted too much. He unlocked the door to the Foxhole Court and told Neil, right and square like a punch, that he would make it to the US Court if he gave Kevin his game. And he never went back on his word.

God — would it really be so inconvenient if he asked Andrew to turn around? Neil's sure he's done more bothersome things to Andrew before. It can't be that such a request would be the thing that tipped him off for good. Surely Andrew would understand: he'd been attached to the hip with Kevin for his entire stay at PSU, save for the six months they were battling out their Cold War and Kevin's first month with the Foxes, when he had just arrived with a broken left hand and nothing to lose. It's unlikely, really, that Neil is the only one mournful about his graduation; it can't be. Not with Andrew's possessive nature.

But he doesn't ask; maybe out of embarrassment, shame. Neil miscalculated how much he thought he needed, and if he'd acted on it sooner maybe he could have convinced Kevin to take a contract from a team in Charlotte, or perhaps Columbia. There were decent ones outside of the capital, though it is contestable that any of them were as good as the Stingrays, who held themselves to high numbers and high rewards. Damn it. _Damn_ it. Damn Jean Moreau and everything that led him to signing a contract with the Stingrays.

"You're being ridiculous," is the first thing Andrew tells him as soon as Robin is out of sight, changing out into sleeping clothes in their shared bedroom. He watches, unimpressed, as Neil — who was being sneaky, lest he thought — searches around the living room for things Kevin might've forgotten in his ex-dormitory, if only so he could take the Maserati and give them back.

Neil is well aware that Andrew is downplaying his displeasure with the situation — he is usually the first one to interject when Kevin strays away from them, and their so called one sided attachment goes both ways, if Andrew's fussiness was anything to go by. It wasn't codependency, Neil thought, but rather that both Andrew and Kevin provided from being within each other's reach at all times. It was an easy agreement.

For that reason, Andrew's lack of reaction to Kevin's absence bothered him more than Neil thought it would. "And you're being a hypocrite," he says with no bite to his voice, standing in the very center of the living room and staring at Andrew dead in the eye.

"Pray tell, how am I being a hypocrite?" Andrew raises an unimpressed eyebrow. Fucker.

Neil squints at him. "You know damn well you hate him being so far away as much as I do."

"Would you rather he got held back a year instead?" he asked tonelessly. "He would've been insufferable."

"I thought we were past the time you thought you could lie to me about your feelings," Neil replied, not offering an inch of doubt for Andrew to latch on.

Andrew's face hardens ever so slightly, and he disappears into the bedroom without a word. That's how Neil knows he struck a nerve — and that he was right to do so. They deserved more than apathy, the both of them, and Neil has told Andrew time and again that he wouldn't stand for it.

His search around the room was in vain, anyways. Kevin hasn’t slept in this dorm in months.

He was no longer a student in Palmetto State University.

No longer a player for the Palmetto State Foxes.

No longer Neil's roommate — Jean's now.

Still Kevin Day, but to another’s delight.

It felt wrong, as if the world had tilted itself out of its axis, so Neil did what he does best and tried to sleep it off, even if he spent the entire night wondering what he was supposed to do now that his left hand was chopped off. He’d miss Kevin like a lung, like a limb, like he'd miss his right leg if it got amputated; it was a humbling thought. Likewise, it was maddening. It cut through him like a knife finding hollow bone instead of marrow, the painful surprise of a bird whose flight couldn't be cut off in time for it to avoid crashing against a window. Neil wasn't prepared for this and it happened anyway.

He's tempted to think it happened too soon, but how soon is soon enough? What would have changed if Neil had gotten a warning? He wouldn’t have listened to it. He would have gotten used and attached to Kevin’s presence all the same, without a second thought about it.

Even if Neil were to be stripped off of his vital organs, his muscle and his skin, everything that made him Neil Josten — his bones would remember what Kevin felt like, and they would miss him anywhere. His bones would rattle and wail over Kevin’s vacancy, still; if only to rail against him one more time, if only to argue and fight, if only to miss a solve-able absence. If only so Neil could tell him _go away_ knowing that Kevin would never.

**Kevin:** _River is good. Penn State drills, of course; but good._

 **Kevin:** _Ferreira is a decent backliner. Not better than Jean. He's too lean; should bulk up more for the season._

 **Kevin:** _Yonah is almost as fast as you are._

Neil bites on his bottom lip pensively, homework long forgotten as he considers Kevin's final thoughts on three of his new teammates. He'd been mulling over his opinion on them for two weeks now, taking in account every new practice with the observation skills of a hawk, but he still hadn't come to a conclusion on every member of the line up. Kevin's commentary on Yonah, a fellow striker, was by far the most positive, but he paid attention to River the most — Neil often got texts of Kevin describing them as 'unsettling', 'prideful' and, occasionally, 'too chatty'. Kevin seemed to scrutinize them from a much closer point of view than he did the rest of the Stingrays, and it made Neil wonder if they were friends.

He doubted Kevin would admit to it if they were.

**Neil:** _No updates on Morales? She's one of the best dealers in professional Exy._

**Kevin is typing…**

**Kevin:** _She's underwhelming. Doesn't have her head on the game a lot. Sometimes she brings her kid along to practice._

Neil frowned. Sidney Morales was, for the lack of a better word, an icon to both Neil and Robin, though for different reasons — Neil thought her technique was impeccable; Robin thought she was very attractive. They often found middle ground when she came up in conversation.

**Neil:** _She's good in official games._

 **Kevin:** _Yes. But she doesn't care a lot about scrimmages._

**Kevin is typing…**

**Kevin:** _She is a friend of Jean's. She's been trying to include River and I on a team dinner next Saturday._

It made sense, of course: the Stingrays were known for their easy dynamics and visibly strong bond. From what Kevin said, they weren't defensive about his scrutiny, given their captain had just as vicious of a mouth as Kevin had, and none of them went out of their way to antagonize Kevin for his opinions. That meant two things: that he was settling in nicely, and that the Stingrays were guided by someone whose ideas were compatible to Kevin's.

It made Neil happy, even if he shouldn't have been worried in the first place — professional teams were fairly more serious than college level Exy, which gave Kevin the room to be as intense about it as he wanted to be, and no one would bat an eyelash at his behavior. Neil almost wanted to be there to watch.

**Neil:** _Will you go?_

**Kevin:** _Yes. Jean says I should. It's at her apartment — her kid will be there._

**Neil:** _And?_

 **Neil:** _You've seen children before._

**Kevin:** _I haven't interacted with a child in years. Should I bring it a gift?_

Neil muffles a laugh on the inside of his elbow, leaning his chin over his crossed arms.

**Neil:** _You should not refer to a child as 'it' in the first place._

 **Neil:** _Yes, bring a present. Boy or girl? How old?_

Kevin takes a bit longer to answer at that. His texting pattern is inconsistent, Neil learned in the last two weeks — he's either a lightning quick responder or a slow, slow remetent, taking up from four to ten hours to actually answer a text. As always, it's unlikely that Kevin would half-ass anything: Neil knows by now that if he doesn't answer, it's because he's too busy to give him an actual conversation. It's an endearing display of care that Neil never thought he'd get from him.

**Kevin:** _Boy. Six years old. Jean just told me he's called Max, and that he likes Exy._

**Neil:** _Get him a poster of your mom or something._

He could almost see Kevin bristle, miles away, in his own apartment.

**Kevin:** _Shut up. He's six. He doesn't know who Kayleigh Day is._

**Kevin is typing…**

**Kevin:** _He thinks we all live on the court. Yesterday he asked me where I sleep. I did not know what to say. I told him I sleep in the bleachers._

That erupts a real cackle from Neil, who is not a stranger to Kevin Day's particular brand of bullshiting his way through difficult questions. Kevin is a terrible, terrible liar when it comes to things like these; his brutally honest nature keeps him from polishing up his lies to make them believable. Luckily, a six year old is no more harder to fool than a particularly well trained dog.

**Neil:** _I would pay real money to get footage of that interaction_.

 **Neil:** _How are you going to explain to this six year old that you live in an actual house that is not the court?_

Kevin leaves a thumbs-down to his last message. Neil bites back a giggle.

**Kevin:** _I will not. I told him I sleep in the bleachers and I will keep to my story if he asks._

**Kevin is typing…**

**Kevin is typing…**

**Kevin is typing…**

**Kevin:** _Jean just said I can't do that. Talk to you later; I'm going to argue with him about it._

Something warm curls up in Neil's chest; a sleeping fox, orange and red, as tender as the sun when it reflects against the water.

**Neil:** _Talk to you later._

If Neil wanted to be a honest creature — which he did a lot more, nowadays —, he'd acknowledge the discrepancy between his need to talk to Kevin and his need to talk to his fellow graduated teammates. Which is to say: one week never passed where Neil didn't speak to the upperclassmen, but two days without anything from Kevin sent him into a withdrawal situation he'd much rather not deal with. Neil wanted to blame it on familiarity; being used to Kevin's presence; but disguising truths were just as filthy as lies, or so Andrew says. What Neil missed about Kevin wasn't necessarily the familiarity of having him around, but the things Kevin gave him that no one else could.

Robin was just as invested in Exy, but she didn't have Kevin's sharp precision: her passion was softer and mellower, the gentle grip of a wrist, whilst Kevin's was a full-on sucker punch, square in the mouth. Nicky was a talker by nature, but he lacked Kevin's vitality; his rants weren't raw and wild, they were distracting and oftentimes confusing. Even Andrew, larger than life as he was, couldn't quite fit himself into the lean silhouette Kevin left behind, lacking Kevin's clumsy — but infinitely real — attempts at tenderness, raised by the ties that only boys who were once young together could form.

The truth is that there is no one like Kevin, and though Neil can very much live without him, he doesn't _want_ to. The child in his chest, ten years old and frightened, petulantly thrashed the walls of his heart whenever he noticed Kevin wasn't around to soothe his nerves and tell him to _get your head back in the game, Josten. Come back to me._ It wasn't longing out of necessity, which Neil understood, but rather longing for the sake of longing: because Kevin wasn't there and Neil desperately wished he was, even if he did not need him to live.

The world would not end at Kevin's absence, but that didn't stop Neil from wishing it did, and damned be the muscles in his body that couldn't stop themselves from loving.

Allison had been trying to get him to open up about what's gotten him so fussy over the past two weeks, but there is nothing Neil could tell her that wouldn't be a lie. He's settled as the captain of the Foxes well enough, he is always within a friend's reach wherever he goes, and the itch to run only hits him every once or twice a month; for once in his life, he is truly and honestly _fine._ Maybe that's why he has the mental willpower to even deal with something as frivolous as worrying about Kevin's absence — since he is not swamped by the ever hovering doom of death, there is space in his heart for thinking about how he wasn't seen a dark curly lock bounce off the sunlight in two weeks.

Lethargy is adolescent, but it is such goodness all the same: Neil now has the luxury of suffering under the weight of goodbye, and the free time to text every single friend that is away a good night, wherever they are and whatever they are doing.

It's almost enough, really. It's almost enough to cut through the desperation in his heart, to ease his nerves, to get him to focus on his homework instead of the absent space of a man who gave Neil a life to look out for. If he squints his eyes and moves his head in the right angle, it's like Kevin hasn't left at all — Neil could almost pretend that he and Andrew aren't tense and vacant with each other; that Robin isn't falling behind on night practice because Neil can't imagine doing it without Kevin; that when Nicky inevitably gets sick from eating one too many gummy bears there is no one to tell him they told him so; that when Aaron knocks on their door, he keeps looking over their shoulders as if he expects Kevin to emerge from the bedroom with a can of beer and a mouthful of arguments to be picked. He can almost pretend that Kevin's absence didn't leave a hole in their group.

Neil and Andrew are fine, really — it's not like they are arguing and slamming doors and pointing fingers, but there is a subtle shift in their dynamic now that they are not getting what they got from Kevin when he was there to indulge them. Neil keeps striking up conversation about Exy out of habit, since no one is there to enable him anymore, and Andrew keeps hovering, fussing, protecting; the same way he did with Kevin when he was around. In theory, it's not harmful — in reality, Andrew hates Exy and Neil hates being smothered. They clash more often than not, and prefer to stay out of each other's way in order to avoid a bigger argument.

It works, until it doesn't. They work, until they don't. It's a system Neil is used to, except one part of the machinery is missing, and so everything else seems to be blindly falling out of place.

In the end, it all comes back to one quite simple truth: Neil Josten did not know how to grow up now that he had the chance — strict orders, even — to do it. The people he built his life around are not looking around, helpless and scared, to check if they’re doing the right thing; it comes to them effortlessly, an unspoken knowledge Neil was never let into. They do not violently reject the idea of one of theirs graduating; they did not need Kevin as desperately as Neil did, because they had a purpose that did not involve him. Because they had a life that would not crumble without him. Because Kevin wasn’t their only crack of light between two eternities of darkness, and because they were not the people that they once were. Because, unlike Neil, they were not the same people they were in Neil’s Freshman year.

The crux of the matter is that he does not know how much he is allowed to change before it defeats the entire purpose of being Neil Josten in the first place. He does not know how to let go of his 18 year-old self, does not know how to dispose of his 18 year-old body, does not know how everyone else could be so nonchalant about shedding out of their skins and letting go of that first year, when Palmetto was a dream Neil fought tooth and nail to keep. He does not know how they can keep on growing, and leaving Neil behind, stagnant and full of refusal.

He does not know how to grow up. He does not want to grow up. And he does not want the people around him to know, either.

Neil wants to be a teenager forever; to be a child again; to grow back in time like swimming to the deep end of a pool, the pressure of the water unpeeling the years and years of adulthood thrust upon him too soon.

Gone were the ghosts of Nathan Wesninski and Mary Hatford; gone was the looming threat of Riko Moriyama; gone was Ichirou’s heavy gaze. Life was not a pressing matter anymore, and Neil _had_ to live, because it was the only thing left to do. He is so much older than he was then — twenty years old now, a feat he thought he’d never be able to achieve —, and so is Kevin, and so is Andrew: they were three old people, now, and the two of them would only get older, but Neil would not. Neil will die his 18 year-old self, because he doesn’t know how to be anyone else, and he is too scared to try.

Everyone else will leave him behind, eventually: who wants to carry a dead weight, stuck in the past? Who wants to keep around a man that needs to be told what to wear in the morning, what to eat, what to like, what to hate, what to believe in, who to vote for, who to be, who to love? Who would want Neil Josten when Neil Josten is not a real person in the first place, but a weird, Frankenstein-like, patched up mess of everyone he loves, and the things they represent?

He used to recognize himself, once — it was the hatred he kept for the man in the mirror that helped him exist; helped him breathe; helped him believe he was someone aside from the names and the places and the lies. Neil does not have that to ground himself anymore; the people he built his life around are slowly disappearing, and with them, Neil Josten will fade away into nothingness once more. Gone, absent, vain: won’t leave a trace. They will raid his bedroom for his things and find nothing. They will find so much nothing it will concretize, for once and for all, that Neil Josten was never real.

He wishes Kevin would walk in with a racquet and a frown and tell him who he is, what he is supposed to be doing, and how to do it.

He wishes time would slow down and fall back upon itself.

He wishes he didn’t have to watch Kevin leave, but he knows that he will have to do it again and again and again and again.

He wishes he wasn’t so used to change that he became afraid of it.


	2. i could never give you peace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw mentions and discussions of eating disorders
> 
> this chapter is basically  
> neil, is already annoyed:  
> andrew: what if i annoy him More

“He’s a little bit terrifying, isn’t he?” Robin hums from where she’s perched on the armrest of Andrew’s chair, her elbow brushing against his shoulder as they sit to the opposite side of where Aaron, Nicky and Neil are crammed into the couch.

Nicky huffs. “He is 6’4 and built like a brick wall. Terrifying isn’t necessarily the term.”

“No, he’s terrifying,” Aaron offers his gruff input with a bit of squirming, doing everything in his willpower to prevent his leg from touching Neil’s, who is just a few inches away. “He looks like he can bench press a truck.”

Robin nods, eyes trained to where Jean Moreau is body checking an opponent to another galaxy in a televised Stingrays scrimmage. “How Kevin finds this man comforting is beyond me,” she eventually concludes, her attention split between the conversation and the television. “Is Kevin even going to play, anyways? He’s been announced in the line up for their first game already.”

 _That_ is a question Neil can offer an answer to — “Yes,” he tells her, pointedly staring at the screen. He knows, logically, that Kevin is not coming in until the second half of the game, but that doesn’t stop him from almost shivering in anticipation. “Second half only. They’re switching Zhong for him and Jean for Ferreira.”

“Did he tell you that?” Andrew asks, monotone as always. Only Neil can see how that is a jab, but he chooses not to focus on it; if Andrew has a problem with Neil’s constant contact with Kevin, he will only acknowledge it when Andrew talks about it like the adult that he is.

“No. But it’s obvious, because Jean’s footwork is getting sloppy as he gets more tired and Zhong hasn’t scored in the past ten minutes,” he explains it in full detail, if only because he knows it will piss Andrew off. “They’re supposed to switch the goalkeeper, too, but Amaral can hold his ground if he wants to. It’s unlikely they’ll use up all of their players for a scrimmage.”

“Hm,” Nicky says before Andrew can retort with something vicious of his own, “have you memorized their line up already?”

Neil scoffs. “I know the relevant players.”

“Like Ferreira,” Robin points out, leaning closer to the direction of the TV as if it would help her see it clearer. “You know Ferreira, Nicky. He’s the one that—”

“—That kneeled during the national anthem in the Olympics last year, right?” Nicky interrupts her as soon as recognition dawns on him, a gentle furrow to his eyebrows. “I remember that. Didn’t the media rip onto him?”

Aaron makes a displeased sound. “Yeah, the motherfuckers. It was a shitshow.”

Daniel Ferreira making it to the US Court wasn’t a surprise to anyone who kept up with profissional Exy, but every fan can remember where they were and what they were doing when, at the start of the very last game of the Olympic season, he took down to both of his knees the second the national anthem started to play. Neil was watching the match with Kevin and Robin that day, the three of them glued to the TV in a bundle of ruffled nerves, and he could still taste the disbelief that settled over the room as they watched Ferreira become the first Court player to protest against the country they were playing for. When the US team took the gold medal home, Ferreira raised a fist at the podium. The backlash came not even a few minutes after the game ended: he was questioned about it the moment the media caught up with him at the door.

It had been a tense moment for his career, considering the general public of Exy and the political climate at the time, but many other players went on to show him support in one way or another — when Kevin got asked about it in a press conference, he stated that his mother would have been disappointed at every Exy fan who tried to vet Ferreira’s protest as unpatriotic or disrespectful. Daniel publicly thanked him for his statement the day after.

Neil turns to Aaron with a raised eyebrow. “I didn’t know you liked Ferreira so much.”

“I don’t care about Ferreira,” he replies, crossing his arms with a sore look, “but I care about what he was trying to say. Exy media is a fucking disgrace; every reporter could drop dead for all I care.”

Robin whistles her agreement. Nicky studies his cousin for a second before humming, “It _was_ a shitshow. I've learned my lesson long ago that sports fans don't like it when athletes talk about race: it's the thing they're sensitive about.”

“Which is ridiculous,” Neil starts, but is immediately thrown off of his sentence by the announcement of the new line up for the second half of the game. He was right: Sarah Zhong would be switched for Kevin Day and Jean Moreau would be switched for Daniel Ferreira, both of which are shown to be standing near the sidelines with matching frowns, seemingly discussing something with Coach Myoui as their replacements take position in the court. When Jean walks him by, Kevin briefly tugs at his jersey. “There he is.”

“Turn the volume up,” Nicky all but squeals, sitting at the edge of the cushion with an excited tremor to his hands. “God, _look_ at him. He’s so small like this. I need to take a picture.”

It’s a disorienting truth — from the other side of the screen, Kevin looks like a pink-and-blue blur as he yells back at his fellow striker, only the sight of his lips moving being shown from under his helmet. Neil grasps for the remote without ever taking his eyes off of the television, but Andrew beats him to it by simply reaching out first and turning the volume a few percentages higher. He barely glances back at Neil as he throws the remote in his lap, but even that feels like a study in pettiness, because Neil knows damn well that Andrew couldn’t care less about this scrimmage if he tried.

“Abeles is so good,” Robin eagerly comments, running an absentminded hand through her braids. “God, her and Kevin are going to be so good together. This is like Christmas to me.”

“It’s so weird to not see him in orange,” Neil says, not bothering to elaborate on his train of thought. The Stingrays’ uniform for home games and scrimmages is a salmon color with navy blue letters, _DAY 02_ nicely printed over Kevin’s back as he waits for the second half of the game to start.

Because it’s only a casual scrimmage, the Stingrays’ are playing at their practice facility — a multi-purpose arena in North Charleston that Kevin must hate with everything in him — with no audience, only a handful of reporters and commentators watching from the bleachers. They have their own court for home games, being Charleston’s pride and joy, but it has been in the works for remodeling ever since last year’s season ended. The Stingrays’ president, a white old man who happens to own a conglomerate of businesses scattered all across the country, has publicly announced their court would be ready to be played in by the time the season started. Given that is in a few weeks, Neil wonders how soon is truly soon.

All of his thoughts come to a halt when Kevin’s pink figure starts to move. From that moment on, the room could start burning and Neil wouldn’t know; wouldn’t care.

It is but a known fact that every situation comes to an awed stop the second Kevin Day walks in, but in the court he is a call to motion. Neil’s feet move on their own accord as he watches Kevin zoom past the opposing team’s backliner with little to no difficulty, a verb of his own in the precision of his footwork and the firm grip of his racquet, and it is hypnotizing; moving even, like the violent stringing of a bass. A striker’s job is to score at whichever cost, as if their life began and ended with the court, but Kevin played like _he_ was the Sun to this solar system, the one thing every other player orbited around. Exy was a bastard sport, but in Kevin’s hands it became royalty; just one of the queen’s many toys.

Neil thought, _The last person to play like this was Kayleigh Day._

Then: _If I squint, it’s like I’m watching her play._

Not Riko, because Riko wasn’t good enough to permanently stain Kevin’s talent; not Raven drills and precision, even if those have helped Kevin become what he is now; not Tetsuji; not Wymack; not Neil or Andrew or Jean — the only person who Kevin could be compared to was the woman with which everything started, both the game and his life, however intertwined those are. Kevin’s only comparison was the heritage he carried on his back like a bright red target.

Neil wondered, for a brief moment, how Wymack could stand looking at Kevin when he was the spitting image of the woman he loved and lost, but chased the thought away on the purpose of watching Kevin score for the second time in the first ten minutes of the second half. Robin jumps on her seat the second the buzzer glows red, almost elbowing Andrew’s eye out in the process. “Mary mother of _God_ ,” she heaves, “I fucking love Kevin.”

Nicky beamed. “This motherfucker _never misses,_ I swear.”

Even Aaron looks impressed. “He’s too good,” he says, not in awe like the other two but in something alike to frustration; confusion. Aaron looks personally offended by how good Kevin is.

Neil studies Kevin’s short lived celebration before humming, “He’s going to get a raise.” Not an opinion, a fact. “He’s going to be a seven figure winner by the time the season ends.”

“Jesus wept,” Nicky gasps, bringing a hand to his mouth. “No one needs that much money. Andrew, is your salary going to be like that when you go pro?”

Andrew grits his teeth, the muscles in his jaw tensing up. “No.”

“He’s lying,” Aaron interjects easily, not even sparing his brother a glance as he stretches out his arms. “He’s going to get filthy rich and pretend he doesn’t know us.”

Nicky snorts, and the glare Andrew sends Aaron is downright murderous — Neil doesn’t know how they can bicker when the game is still going, but doesn’t comment on it; he’s too busy tracking Kevin’s jersey like an eagle. Robin seems to be having the same internal debate, her eyes following the small dot that is Kevin Day wherever it goes like she’s scared to forget him.

The Stingrays win the scrimmage, unsurprisingly. An 11-6 win for a casual game is more than enough to keep Exy fans on their tiptoes with their new line up, and Neil can already predict the headlines: _They finally sting — could this be the season of the Stingray?_ in bold, bright letters. Pride is a wild, punch-drunkenness inducing ordeal; it curls in Neil’s stomach like flaming hot lava. When he catches Andrew’s eyes, the slight satisfaction dripping from the hazel gold is enough to make Neil forget whatever arguments they’ve had in the past weeks.

He gives it a few minutes before typing out a quick text message to Kevin, who would probably still be buzzing off of the adrenaline from the game. Neil knows how he operates, by now — his answer will come either in seconds or hours, and regardless of when, it will be clumsily optimistic.

**Neil:** _Good game. Where are you taking me when you get that seven figure paycheck?_

Seconds apart, comes Kevin’s answer:

**Kevin is typing....**

**Kevin:** _First stop is Galway. Second is Dublin. How’s your Gaelic?_

Neil smiles.

**Neil:** _It’s absolute shit. You’ll do all the talking._

**Kevin:** _For once._

He smiles wider.

His gaze knocks against Andrew's as he scans the room and, for once, Neil looks away — the smile he's biting back is a force of nature on its own and it hurts him to think of dampening it for the sake of someone else's comfort. It's _Kevin._ This joy and pride is only justified, if not familiar and expected: to think Neil, of all people, would turn down a chance at glowing under Kevin's triumph is insincere at best and downright foolish at worst. He is so happy his lungs hurt; so happy he can feel his hands shake with a rabbit pulse; so thrilled he can already feel the Foxhole Court calling him from afar.

It's an unspoken agreement that tonight they would — _finally_ — pick up the slack with night practice once more. Kevin's game is all the motivation Neil needs to pass onto the knowledge given to him, and when Robin bounces at her feet as they reach for the Maserati, there is no way that they could have stopped this onslaught of inspiration from hitting them at their softest; not when Kevin is a breath of fresh air and Neil had been getting used to bruised lungs.

The ride towards the stadium feels empty, and it is what Neil dreaded the most: the silence that could only punctuate the absence of something that should be there, but isn't. Andrew had wordlessly followed them as they took to the stairs, an unusual presence ever since Neil had been granted driver's privilege, and Neil can't help but think it's because of his recent protective streak — for a man who constantly claimed to not need anything, Andrew clearly needed someone under his wing to watch over, however much he tried to deny it. The image of Andrew stripped of someone on his arm had been getting rarer and rarer, and Neil wonders if Andrew even notices it at all; if he can tell Kevin's absence had gone straight to his head.

Robin sits in the backseat and hooks her chin over the back of Andrew's seat, uncharacteristically silent. When Kevin was here, he'd usually talk to her the entire ride to and from the stadium, discussing training strategies and the calendar of practices he'd crafted for her that would take Robin to a professional team in no time. Without Kevin here, though, the silence stretches on — there is no one to fill it. Robin, Andrew and Neil are quiet by nature, and enablers by principle: without someone to cut through the quiet first, they don't speak a thing. It's an opaque reality to an otherwise clear as water lifetime.

Andrew and Neil have nothing to say to each other nowadays; their clashing needs can't seem to settle. Neil watches him hover near Robin's elbow as they walk through the parking lot, and quietly grieves all of the things he can't give Andrew — all of the times he shied away from his protection, the spaces he put between them when he noticed Andrew standing behind his back. For a man whose independence came hard earned and in the most traumatizing way possible, Neil can't stand to be smothered by Andrew like Kevin does. He allows it, every now and then, because he knows Andrew still treats protecting his loved ones as a reason to keep living, but it becomes bothersome soon enough.

They are getting somewhat quieter with each other; tense, sometimes even awkward. Neil doesn’t want to know if it’s the piled up stress of Andrew’s looming graduation or the fact that Kevin is nowhere near to cut through their too long silences and too enabling personalities, but maybe it's a mix of both: without Kevin's grounding roughness, they are afloat. Neil never knew how much he depended on his and Kevin's harmonic routine until it slipped away through his fingers.

The quiet is unnerving; the court is a ghost town. Andrew and Robin trail behind him silently as Neil pushes the door to the stadium open, each step infinite, and Andrew's path stops in the foyer as Robin and Neil make their way to the locker room to gather their gear. His hands are unusually clumsy when he puts on his gear — the excitement of Kevin's match and the deafening silence around him battle out within his hands, making them fail where they would usually triumph.

Robin is already geared up and straddling a bench in the mens' locker room when Neil steps into her line of sight, tying back his hair with a bandana. He looks at her curiously, knowing she'd usually wait with Andrew in another situation, but doesn't have to wonder a lot; Robin breaks the silence before he can ask her what she wants.

Neil can predict her words before she even says them — it's like they ricochet from his chest to hers. "It's weird without him here," she quietly points out, as if Neil didn't know.

He can't — shouldn't, won't, — agree with her, however much he wants to. Neil is her captain: he can't fail her because of his personal feelings regarding Kevin's absence. There still is a team to take care of, and the idea of compromising Robin's game thaws at his throat uncomfortably.

But the truth is that he doesn't know what to do; how to make it better; how to fit in Kevin's shoes. For once, this isn't about Exy — this is about love, and the things it destroys.

"Call him, then," Neil calmly tells her, reaching into his duffel bag to throw his phone at her.

Robin catches it on reflex effortlessly, and something in his chest swells with pride. He wishes Kevin was there to see it. "What if he's asleep?" she hums, toying with Neil's phone.

"Robin," he starts, unpeeling the eagerness from his tone, "you know he isn't. Kevin barely sleeps."

She huffs. "Sometimes he does."

"When?"

She huffs again. " _Fine._ "

Something inside of Neil settles, stormy waters turning stable at the sight of the lighthouse that is Robin dutifully typing out Kevin’s number, not one minute between them to waste.

“Hello?” the phone chimes back after a few rings, and Neil approaches her seated figure, leaning against the wall and craning his neck towards the phone like a sunflower to the sun.

“Kevin?” Robin carefully asks.

“Oh, dear, no — it’s Jean,” the voice answers back. Neil presses his lips into a tight line; _of course._ Kevin and Jean are a package deal now: it’s just obvious that they’re together. “Wait a second. He’s in his bedroom.”

A few moments pass before Kevin’s voice pushes through the silence of the locker room, just enough to make Neil’s shoulders relax and Robin’s ears perk up in interest. “Hello, Robin. What do you need?”

“I’m here too, asshole,” Neil makes himself known.

A huff from the other side of the line. “Hello, Neil. What do you two need?”

“We’re about to have night practice,” Robin informs him, twirling one of her braids around her finger. It’s one of the brighter ones, a shade of blonde a few darker than Andrew’s mixing up with honey-brown twin braids. “What do you think I should improve on?”

“Well, there is still a lot you have to improve on, Robin. Has Andrew been pulling his weight in helping you?” Kevin asks, the soft sound of shuffling and footsteps coming from his side of the line confirming that he is pacing around his room. “I still have my copy of your training schedule. Did you print the one I emailed you?”

Robin’s lips tug into a knowing smile. “He has.” It’s not a lie, but not exactly a truth — Andrew helps when he wants to. “I haven’t printed it yet. Aaron is still setting up his new printer.”

“Don’t depend on him, Robin. It’s easier if you depend only on yourself,” Kevin lightly reprimands, the footsteps stopping for a brief minute. _Isn’t that progress,_ Neil distantly thinks; it’s been years since the Ravens’ codependent tendencies have made an appearance in Kevin’s lifestyle. Nowadays he would much rather navigate life alone, or at least as independently as he can with Andrew hovering behind him at each step. “Neil, why haven’t you printed it out for her already?”

Neil whistles. “I didn’t know about this.”

A long suffering sigh comes from Kevin’s line. “If you flunk this team on my absence, Neil Josten, so help me God—”

“I won’t,” he cuts him short, “you know I won’t.”

“I know,” Kevin concedes easily. Their game is so intertwined now: Kevin could tell Neil’s intentions with his eyes closed, without ever having asked about them. “Why aren’t you practicing already?”

Robin smacks her lips. “It’s weird without you.”

“Well,” he replies, “then don’t let it be. This isn’t about me; this is about _you._ Plus — I’m here.”

 _I’m here._ A simple statement of fact, logical, clinic, the closest Kevin could ever get to a reassurance: _I’m here._ Like it is that easy; like it solves the rupture of his absence. Neil wants to argue, but he’s not sure what he would be arguing against.

“You’re there,” Neil ends up correcting him, “and we are here.”

“Don’t get soft on me, Josten,” Kevin scolds. He sounds so much like his father when he does this — a gruff complaint that sounds like a reassurance of sorts, comforting though it has no business being so. “I am here. I am not dead. I am one call away, if that. Don’t let me get between you and your game.”

Robin exhales softly from her nose; almost a fond laugh. Neil can’t see Kevin, but if he were physically there, Neil imagines he’d soften at that. “Watch me practice tonight?” she asks, gentle in a way only she can be, and adds, “We’ll prop you up on the bleachers and turn on a video call — so you can criticize to your heart’s desire.”

It takes Kevin’s will exactly three seconds to crumble. “Yeah, okay,” he good naturedly answers, “but if you get distracted by me, Robin—”

“I won’t,” Robin promises him, and Neil thinks it’s only half-empty. “You think Andrew would let me get distracted?”

As if he’d been waiting for his name to be brought up, Andrew slides into the room cooly, hands buried in his pockets as he gives Robin and Neil an once-over before turning his gaze to the phone. Without ever asking who it is, Andrew utters a monotone, “Kevin.”

“Andrew.” Kevin acknowledges him shortly before continuing, “As I was saying, Robin, I’ll watch as long as it’s not a distraction. And—” he pauses briefly, “as long as your captain agrees.”

Neil fights the urge to scoff. “This is your court.”

“More yours than mine,” Kevin corrects him.

“Enough with the flirting,” Andrew boredly intervenes, grabbing the phone from Robin’s hand and pressing it to his ear with a swift move. Neil holds his breath. “Kevin Day, when will your claws leave our guts for good?”

“I’ve tried once,” Kevin reminds him easily, “and you did not let me.”

Andrew’s features tighten, but he doesn’t deny it. “Get on with your training, then.”

“Andrew,” Neil calls, offering his palm in Andrew’s direction. “Give me back my phone.”

He stares at Neil for a few seconds, calculating, before giving it back. Neil expects him to storm out of the room, but tonight he stays — tonight he fixes his gaze on Neil’s phone and waits for Kevin’s answer. _I’m not the only one missing him, then,_ Neil thought to himself. He already knew that. “Why are you three lounging around?” Kevin complains. “Get to the court already. I don’t have all night.”

Robin huffs a laughter before getting up from the bench, adjusting the collar of her jersey and gathering her gloves. Neil follows her as she leaves, but makes a point out of pressing the phone to Andrew’s palm, both an acknowledgment of his repressed longing and a vote of trust — _take care of it for me. Take care of him for me._ Andrew does, but Neil isn’t surprised: of course he does. He’d trust Andrew with each and every of his belongings; his body included.

Practice goes smoothly after that — Andrew doesn’t participate as Neil puts Robin through a handful of improved Fox drills, but he watches for the entire time, holding the phone turned towards them while he waits in the bleachers. He’s too far away for Neil to know what he’s talking about when his lips are moving, but he knows he’s talking to Kevin, which is as heartwarming as it gets for the three of them. Neil wants to ask what is so interesting in their discussion, seeing Kevin’s hands gesticulate strongly even if his eyes don’t move from where they stare into the camera, but he couldn’t let himself be distracted by Kevin after he made Robin promise she wouldn’t. It wouldn’t be fair as her captain.

The pleasant ache of a good practice hammers through his muscles as he jogs over to where Andrew is standing, Robin following in tow as she pants through the exhaustion. They’re both dripping with sweat by the time their practicing ends, but it’s the satisfactory thrill of Exy that keeps them moving closer and closer to the bleachers, ready to face another half an hour or so of Kevin Day’s extense critique. God, Neil missed _this._ Missed _them._ For a moment, it’s like things have aligned again.

Kevin doesn’t even wait for them to fully reach him or stop panting as he gives them his verdict: “Your footwork is getting sloppier, Neil. You have to work on your breath if you want to last full halves on the first games of the season; you can’t get this breathless just from drills,” he professes easily, with the ownership of a judge. “Robin, you’re still not centering yourself when you stand. It’s like a ball could go through you and you’d fly away instead of defending it. This isn’t your fault, though — _Andrew_ should be the one telling you that.”

Andrew shrugs. “You’ve heard Her Majesty.”

Robin leans her weight against Neil’s side for a brief second before switching to her left feet. “I don’t _know_ how to center myself when I stand. Is it, like, a weight thing — should I bulk up more?”

“No,” Andrew replies before Kevin can, “it comes with practice. You learn how to hold your weight in a way that stabilizes you without forcing you to stay put.”

“You can learn that through picking up martial arts,” Kevin adds, his image on the screen a bit blurry from the dim lighting. He looks soft, still, propped up against the headboard of his bed with a mess for his hair. When he runs a sleepy hand through his face, Neil realizes how tired he must be from his game. “Or sparing. Andrew learned the skill by getting into fistfights, so I’m sure you can pick it up easily. Ask Coach to sign you up for classes, won’t you?”

She considers it for a second before nodding. “Yeah, okay. I will.”

“Good. Neil,” Kevin turns to where he is standing as if he was there, with them, and close enough to tug at Neil’s jersey. “Your aim has improved. Have you been practicing it?”

Neil offers him a toothy grin. “I’ve been learning the mathematics behind it.”

Kevin stops for a moment to absorb that. “I can’t believe you’ve decided to do it just when I can’t be around to help. After I’ve been nagging at you to learn it for _years._ ”

“I reiterate your own words: it’s not like you’re dead,” Neil replies, bouncing on his feet due to the adrenaline. He stretches his arms over his head before crossing his fingers over his nape. “One call away, you said. That goes both ways.”

He huffs, crossing his arms in that stubborn way that tells Neil he knows he’s in the wrong, but won’t admit to it. To see it again after so long warms him all over; Neil is too happy. “Well, that was that. I’ve given you criticism. Have I fulfilled my duties and can I go to sleep, now?”

Robin runs a hand through her braids gingerly, detangling a few that got stuck to her pigtails. “I can’t believe you’re still awake after that match.”

Andrew shoots her a bored glance. “That is what being put on asteroids as a child does to you.”

“Untrue and ignorant,” Kevin disagrees on the same note, habitually raking his fingers through his hair. “I just have great stamina, Robin. You’ll build up yours the more you play. By the time you’re pro, you won’t even be tired after games.”

“Hopefully,” Robin hums, her gaze bright-eyed at Kevin’s easy approval — not _if_ you go pro, but _when._ Neil, who was once there too, can’t blame her for being starstruck. She pops her head in front of the camera curiously, perhaps a bit too close to the screen, and Andrew pulls it back a few inches. “You’re in bed already. You could just turn to the side and fall asleep. I love the pyjamas, by the way — how come you own more Trojans shirts than Foxes ones?”

Kevin huffs, squinting at her through the screen. “It’s not mine. It’s Jean’s. You want me to get a Robin Cross shirt, is that it?”

She beams. “Very much so. You’ll look lovely with it. Send me pictures so I can make it my lockscreen.”

“Fuck off,” he answers, but he hasn’t told her no. Neil distantly wonders if Kevin would get a Neil Josten shirt, as well. “Go shower, you two. I’m surprised Andrew hasn’t complained yet.”

“You have bored me to death with your Exy,” Andrew utters indifferently. “I fell asleep for a second.”

“Then go to bed,” Kevin tells him, reaching for something outside of his camera’s reach. The screen goes dark a few moments after, and Neil realizes he’d been looking for his lamp. “I know _I_ will. Goodbye now.”

Robin’s grin softens. “Goodnight.”

Tentatively, Neil adds: “Goodnight.”

After a quick moment of reluctance, Andrew completes their triade with a bored sounding, “Don’t die in your sleep,” before turning off the call and promptly pulling himself to his feet. “I will wait in the car,” he announces, shoving Neil’s phone to his chest on his way out.

Neil takes his time in the shower, letting his soreness make him human once more, even though the warmth that spreads through him can’t be washed away — Kevin was _there._ He said he’d be there and he _was._ He picked up the phone and stayed with them despite how tired he was from his own game. Neil didn’t know how afraid he was of Kevin slipping away from them until he realized Kevin wanted to stay just as much as Neil wanted him to. He didn’t plan to disappear; he wanted to _stay._

Andrew pushes him onto the floor the moment Robin disappears to their bedroom after a murmured _yes or no?_ that had become less and less needed as time went by. It was a good night, and perhaps the closest they’d been in weeks since the night at Kevin’s apartment — Neil felt invincible. He felt real. He felt as if Neil Josten wasn’t just a person worth acknowledging, but one worth loving. Worth staying for; like Kevin did.

Sleep comes easy.

It’s, of course, not enough.

Not enough to fix whichever tension has been settled between him and Andrew, and certainly not enough to fill up the hole Kevin’s absence left behind. Not enough to keep them from clashing just a week after that night.

It’s a stupid fight that sets them off, really — Neil doesn’t even know why he’s so upset by Andrew’s dismissal, but he is. One second they were okay, sitting in the living room of their dorm after a brief rundown of their next activities as a team from Wymack, and on the other Andrew was getting up to leave the second Neil’s Exy blabbering became more insistent. Neil barely registers himself as he crosses his arms in front of the door, not imposing enough that Andrew couldn’t easily push him away if he wanted to but still a clear sign of his displeasance.

“You don’t get to just walk away from me because you don’t want to deal with Exy,” Neil tells him, keeping his voice low but unrestrained; almost indifferent if it weren’t for the inexcusably annoyed tinge of his tone. “I’m not disposable like that. You can’t just push me aside when you think I’m not meeting your interests.”

Andrew studies his face for a long, long moment, and even Neil can tell he’s being too antagonistic, but he can’t bring himself to _stop —_ not when he’s been dying to just _talk_ about this game for a minute, and Andrew can’t even sit still through five minutes of it. If not even Andrew, Neil’s life partner, wants to hear about this, then who will? Who will sit with Neil’s most lively thoughts and not shush him at the peak of his excitement?

“I,” Andrew punctuates his words carefully, “am not Kevin. I will not do the things he does for you. I have no obligation to listen to you talk about Exy.”

Neil grinds his teeth. “Well, it is good to know that your good favor comes with terms and conditions. Do you expect me to moderate my passion for you forever?”

His face hardens. “I do not expect anything.”

“I told you that doesn’t cut with me anymore, Andrew,” Neil frustratedly runs a hand through his hair, taking a few steps back to increase the distance between them. “Do I have to spell this out? Okay. It upsets me that I can’t talk to you about something that I love without you walking out on me mid-conversation. At least _tell me_ before walking away, Jesus Christ.”

Andrew presses his lips into a thin line before answering, “I will not discuss this with you here, or now. We will talk about this later, when you are not so clearly channeling your anger into the wrong thing.”

Neil huffs. “And what the fuck is _that_ supposed to mean?”

“You,” he pointedly replies, “are not stupid. You are well aware.”

“No, Andrew, I’m not. I’m not well aware. I’m tired is what I am,” Neil sighs, stepping away from the doorstep and moving to sit on the closest beanbag. “But go on. Leave. Whatever. It’s what you wanted to do in the first place. I’ll talk to you on the roof.”

Andrew stays frozen for a few more minutes, but eventually slips through the door with heavy steps. Neil allows himself only a brief session of drowning in his own misery before he’s heading off for a run across Fox Perimeter, lips cracked and hands curled into angry fists.

He’s not angry at Andrew — mostly, he’s angry at himself. Angry for wanting too much; angry for not knowing how to stop; angry for getting mean at the first sign of discomfort. They’re walking in circles each time they don’t acknowledge the shift in their dynamics now that Kevin is not there: his absence feels like a stained shirt both Andrew and Neil refuse to take off or acknowledge as dirty, and they are all but a trainwreck waiting to happen. How many more times will they argue because of something silly before Andrew can admit that a big part of their lives is missing, and therefore affecting their relationship? Not even _Neil,_ repressed as he is, can understand why Andrew is so adamant about vetting each and every suggestion that he might miss Kevin. It’s such a regress from their sorely earned trust within each other; Neil can’t help but wonder _why_ Andrew is pulling back from him now.

When he told Allison about it, she suggested jealousy — she said it could be that he was jealous of how much time Neil spent thinking about Kevin, but _that_ made no sense. Andrew did not believe in jealousy, and much less did Neil; they did not belong to each other because they were their own people, and their bond was strong enough that they both knew it was unlikely that anyone would come between them. Even more so, the idea of Andrew being jealous of _Kevin_ — someone who spent most of his time at PSU attached to them as if a third arm, someone Andrew dreaded losing the one time he considered walking away from them — was ridiculous. Kevin could never get between them; he was integrated enough in their dynamic for Neil to know that he would never be a problem. Kevin had his own space in both of their lives, and they were a trio; they had always been a trio. Every Exy related media outlet has pointed them out as such.

The sky had already darkened by the time Neil returns to Fox Tower, and though Andrew is nowhere in sight, Robin is cocooned in the couch, back from her classes. When she sees him standing at the doorway, Robin tucks her chin into the gap between her knees, dark eyes round and spooked like they always seem to be, her irises barely recognizable from her pupils. She is not the anxious mess she was at her Freshman year — Robin Cross stands as tall as her height now, the vice captain to the Foxes and Neil’s partner in crime now that Kevin has graduated.

Her braids and their charms twinkle under the light, brown skin a warm yellow under Neil’s lamp, and her t-shirt is borrowed — probably Nicky’s, given how large it is on her frame. Robin is by no means dainty, but she is as lean as she is lanky, though with significantly less bulk. She doesn’t look like much off court, but then again, none of them do.

If Robin’s eyes were not so dark and her eyebrows were a little thicker, her features sharper, she could pass off as Kevin’s sister. They were often mistaken for siblings by unknowing classmates who took a glance at the color of their skins and the shape of their lips and decided that they were too alike to be unrelated, though neither had the same ancestry. Kevin carried Kayleigh Day’s green eyes and brown skin along with David Wymack’s high cheekbones and sharp features, whereas Robin’s parents were dark-skinned people with soft looking faces and kind eyes. Neil thought the only thing they had in common was their unrelenting stubbornness and fierce faith, but it helped their case that Robin was a full head smaller than Kevin.

“How are you doing?” she tentatively murmurs, blinking around long eyelashes and thick layers of sleep. Neil is often at odds with how easy it is to know what she’s thinking, but that came with effort; Robin could barely trust him to be in the same room as her in her first year, and now they can have full conversations in the dorm room they share without her pulling away from his gaze. She was as much a stray as he was, in that way, but Neil didn’t understand her — where Robin spent most of her childhood in captivity, Neil spent most of his running from city to city. They were opposites; two sides of the same traumatized coin.

Neil shrugs, reaching towards the bottle of orange juice Nicky almost spilled all over the couch a few hours ago. “‘M fine,” he mumbles through a gulp, letting the iciness of it cut through the furnace that has become his body due to the muffled living room, all windows shut.

Robin raises an eyebrow. “Andrew says you’re full of shit everytime you say you’re fine.”

"Andrew is not the keeper of the truth,” Neil tells her, leaning back against the couch. They are sitting on the carpet around the coffee table now, near but not touching, and Robin’s fuzzy socks rub against one another in one of her many fidgety habits. That’s another of her similarities with Kevin — neither of them could stay still for too long before breaking into jitteriness. Kevin’s habits were often nervous, at times awkward, but Robin’s were more soothing; she hadn’t been trained out of her quirks like Kevin has.

“Are you guys fighting?” she asks, instead, because Neil knows she believes Andrew to be the keeper of the truth to some extent. Robin was enamored by him the same way a child was enamored by their cool, welcoming professor; she held Andrew’s opinion in high regard and tucked herself under his wing as much and as tightly as possible. _Like Kevin,_ a voice in his mind told him. The similarities piled up. “Do you want me to stay at Nicky’s for some time?”

If Andrew was something akin to Robin’s mentor, Nicky was more alike to a fraternal figure. He was welcoming, kind, and Robin devoured kindness as ferociously and loyally as a hound. “We’re not… Fighting,” Neil replies, a soft frown to his features. “We’ve just… Been weird, lately.”

Robin hums. “Since when?”

“Since the day classes started.”

She hums again. “You mean the day Kevin moved into his apartment?”

Neil aborts a wince midway.

Robin stays quiet for a second, warm brown eyes pushing against Neil's icy blue, before she gently points out, "He misses Kevin, too. There is no one for him to fuss over. He has an empty nest for the first time in years; it frustrates him."

And the thing is that Neil _knows_ about this, but Andrew refuses to acknowledge it. He doesn't know why he wants Andrew to acknowledge Kevin’s importance in their lives as badly as he does, but Neil knows he won't settle until Andrew does it.

Still — Robin doesn't know about that. Neil huffs softly, "You talk as if he's a worried mother hen."

"Is he not?" she chuckles lightly.

"Have they been talking?" Neil asks, unable to stop himself before he does. Robin hangs around Andrew almost every day, and though Neil has — emotionally, but not physically — grown apart from him ever so slightly, that doesn't mean Neil doesn't worry. The only comfort is that Robin, stubborn as she is, would never let Andrew fall back into his self destructive habits.

Robin adjusts her blanket over her shoulders as she considers it. "Yes," she says after a moment, "but I don't know how, or when. I think he just calls to make sure he's alive every once in a while."

"Kevin calls or Andrew does?" Neil hums. "That sentence could mean either of them."

She chuckles. "Andrew calls. I don't know if he's convinced by the calls alone that Kevin is doing fine, but it eases the edge of his missing for a few days after." Robin delicately lifts one end of her blanket, offering it to Neil, and he shakes his head. She lets it drop once more. "It's a weird relationship that they have. I think neither of them can admit how much they care about the other, but when something happens…" She motions vaguely. "Sometimes I think Andrew would burn the world to an ash and still not let a single flame touch Kevin."

Neil laughs at that, because he's sure of it. For a short moment, he wonders if he should be jealous, but quickly dismisses the thought as not even Robin seems to expect him to be. Again: it's impossible to be jealous of Kevin. He was Andrew's before Neil even knew Andrew existed. "They're stupid," he sighs out, almost fondly. "It's good they have you and I to make up for the dumbness levels."

Robin knocks their heads together gently. "I'm not as smart as you."

"You're even smarter." Neil leans his own head against hers instead of knocking back. It’s platonic affection, and he’s been getting better at it — Nicky’s influence. “You have the patience of a saint. I’m intrigued by it.”

She huffs in disdain, but doesn’t answer. Robin still stumbles clumsily when it comes to peeling back the layers and layers of self-hatred that she has grown over the years, but Neil thinks that, if there is anyone in the world that can truly learn how to wholeheartedly love themselves, it’s Robin Cross. She has Kevin’s drive and Andrew’s stubbornness — the world was hers, all she had to do was take it. Neil would tell her just as much if he knew she wouldn’t dismiss it as a lie.

They sit together for a little while, and Neil’s rattled nerves slowly come to a delicate calm, easy enough to shatter. Neil and Andrew were past the time they thought they could ever lose the other to something as petty as an argument, but it was still unnerving to disagree on a matter so… Unimportant, at the end of the day. He knows well enough that what bothered him wasn’t Andrew’s nonchalantness about Exy, but the dismissal of Kevin’s place in both of their lives, which seems to be the root that all problems come back to eventually. Neil has no idea how to explain that to Andrew in a way that doesn’t make him seem too fixated on Kevin’s absence, however obsessed he seems to be about it.

It’s only in the late, late night when he leaves to meet Andrew on the roof, each step taking longer to land than the other. Neil is surprised with himself when he realizes he can bring his feet to move one in front of the other, because for a second or two he believed he would grow roots by the roof’s doorstep — wouldn’t that be ironic? A man whose life was running away becoming a statue, forever unable to move — and die there.

Andrew sits by his usual spot near the ledge, leaning back on his hands now that he’s been trying to cut down on the nicotine. He looks endless; he always does. Andrew is not beautiful — he is a force to be reckoned with, an irresistible beckoning, the last thing Neil wants to see before he closes his eyes. To call him beautiful feels redundant; less than; irrevocably foolish: Andrew is a force of nature and, likewise, Neil can only hope to survive whatever weather he will bestow upon them tonight.

“Are you going to stand there forever?” he monotonically asks when Neil spends too much time staring at the empty space beside him. “And here I thought you were over your stray cat days.”

Neil huffs a curt laugh at that, but fits himself beside Andrew like he’s done countless times before. Looking down at Palmetto is still a thrill Neil doesn’t reckon he’ll ever let go of — everything feels so little from up the Fox Tower, and the way down seems so short and deadly from where he’s sitting. Moments like these make Neil wonder when did he even decide that he wants to live, in spite of himself; make him question when his brain started to get used to the idea of a future where he could send his friends’ children birthday presents.

The frozen-in-time part of him still scoffs at such domesticities whenever Neil thinks about them, and he hopes one day it will finally stop thinking of his decision to stay alive as a betrayal to everything he believed in. He hopes one day he can forgive himself for shedding out of the skin that would have died before he ever completed twenty years of life, and in doing so, also raise forgiveness over every bit of Mary Hatford’s advice he let go to waste.

“I,” Andrew starts after a moment of silence, “am not angry at you.”

Neil knew that. “I know.”

“Good,” he replies, fiddling with his fingers absentmindedly. Andrew does that more now — it keeps him from the cigarettes. “That does not mean I am going to do for you what Kevin did.”

“Yes,” Neil agrees once more, because he knew that too, “but that goes both ways.”

Andrew doesn’t answer that straight away, tracing the campus’ silhouette with his eyes almost reverently. In the dark, his eyes look pitch black, the same color of Nicky’s — they look a little bit more like family, then. Andrew only knows how to belong in the dark.

“I know,” he eventually settles. For a second Neil thinks this will be all of their discussion, but then Andrew asks, “Why do you want me to acknowledge Kevin’s graduation so badly, Abram?”

And to that, Neil doesn’t know what to say.

What is he supposed to say, even? That Kevin seems like such a big part of their relationship that Andrew’s dismissal felt almost like rejection? That Neil needs the both of them to keep his spine straight, his chin up? That he misses Kevin so much more than he thought he would? That he has been growing an incredible amount of petty resentment towards Jean Moreau? That whatever he and Andrew had isn’t the only thing Neil needs to keep going, at least not in the way he once thought they were?

“I don’t know,” he answers, instead. Because it’s true. Because Neil has never known less in his life, and it terrifies him. “But how can you — how do you just ignore it? How is it not eating at you? He’s _three hours_ away. It’s… Andrew, if something happened, how long before we would even know about it?”

Andrew’s jaw muscles tense up ever so slightly. “There is nothing we can do, Abram.”

“No.” Neil shakes his head, almost too fierce. “You don’t get to evade that question. Because I _know_ you, Andrew, and I know you hate this as much as I do. Why are you lying to me?”

“I’m not.”

“You are. You are lying to my face everytime you act like you don’t care about Kevin,” Neil all but accuses, keeping his tone even, “and I want to know — _why_? Why do you think you have to lie to me about this?”

Andrew studies him for a second before replying with a question of his own, “Why do you lie to me when you say you don’t know why Kevin’s absence hurts you?”

Neil blinks at him in surprise, and triples up on the number of unanswered questions tonight. “Why are you asking me that?”

Andrew looks at him.

Looks at the night sky.

Looks at Neil again.

Then says: “Because it is the same reason.”

For a second, the world comes to a halt, but it doesn’t last for long enough. It never lasts for long enough.

Neil’s phone starts to ring as if on cue, the strident noise of a song Andrew himself programmed into it cutting through the silence of the roof. He feels the urge to groan out a mournful _no,_ because they were so close — they were so close to solving whatever tension had been growing between them ever since Kevin moved away, and now everything had been dissipated because Neil couldn’t remember to keep his phone off.

He briefly considers not picking it up, but then Andrew growls, “Just pick it up already,” and Neil has no choice but to do it.

Fishing the phone from his hoodie’s pocket, Neil has only half the mind to acknowledge the caller before calling out a somewhat shaky, “It’s Jean.”

Kevin — who barely ever reaches out — calling in the middle of the night would be worrisome. Now, Jean Moreau — who _never_ reaches out — calling in the middle of the night tells Neil that Kevin has been dead for hours already and Jean is calling them to say that they just found the body. Andrew seems to agree with his train of thought, because he scoots impossibly close to make Neil pick up the phone instead of staring at the screen in awed, cotton-dead panic.

 _“Neil Josten,_ ” is the first thing Jean says when Neil picks up the phone, which does nothing for his nerves. Neil can hear it when Andrew gulps down saliva in a frail attempt of composition, furiously worried before he even knew what happened. _That’s more like it._ "Where are you? Can you listen?"

Neil stammers, "I'm here."

“Listen to me carefully, because I will only say this once," Jean punctuates each word with a harsh edge. "I got a call half an hour ago from the hospital about Kevin Day having just been accepted to the ER, unconscious. Nurse says he fainted. Will you or will you not need the name of the hospital?”

Andrew grabs the phone from Neil’s hands before he can even answer. “ _Which_ hospital, Moreau?”

“That’s what I thought. I’ll send him the address.”

“Wait,” Neil says, grabbing the phone back and putting it on speaker with shaky hands, “what happened? Who found him? Why is he unconscious?”

After a few muffled noises from the other side of the line and the unmistakable sound of a car horn, Jean replies in the same frantic voice: “I already told you he fainted. The nurse who called me said it was low blood sugar,” a nervous sigh cuts through the line, “so it’s what we already know. He either hasn’t been eating, or has been exercising too much and eating too little. A setback."

Andrew is reaching for the car keys and all but dragging Neil out of the ground by the time Jean gets to the last of his explanation, the two of them frantically cutting through the staircase as Andrew snarls, “And who let that happen?”

“You’ll find that it’s very easy to let that happen when Kevin is such a good liar,” Jean answers, but his voice is too nervous, too shaky for it to be as vicious as he perhaps meant it to be.

“Fuck you,” Andrew answers by routine, and Neil, out of respect, ignores the way his hands tremble ever so slightly when he grips around the wheel of the Maserati. “I told you what would happen if you let him relapse.”

A sharp laugh comes from Jean’s line, humorless. “And I told you your threats mean nothing to me,” he replies. There is a short pause before he says, “Don’t die on the road. I don’t want to be the one to tell Kevin you both crashed. Goodbye.”

And with that, he’s gone. Andrew looks like he has half the mind to throw the phone out of the window, but he seems to satisfy that destructive urge by stepping onto the pedal of the Maserati as hard as he can, pulling off through Palmetto’s parking lot with his teeth gritted so painfully that Neil would reach out to comfort him if he didn’t know Andrew hated to be touched in times of stress. He fumbles with his seatbelt as a quiet reminder for Andrew to adjust his own, and through the panicked fog, Andrew does it if only for Neil’s sake.

The ride to Charleston is deadly quiet and too long. Three hours felt simultaneously infinite and seconds-short; Neil found himself amazed by the way time felt liquid, its relativity molded to how much one dreaded for the seconds to pass. The world crashes down onto him in slow, firm waves — Neil has to fight to stay afloat because he doesn’t know if he can handle drowning, not when Kevin is miles away in a hospital bed and each step Neil takes in his direction feels more and more fogged. The silence in the Maserati doesn’t help, but neither of them have it in themselves to say anything; perhaps because this is what they dreaded the most, happening right in front of their eyes.

 _If something happened, how long before we would even know about it?_ he had questioned, minutes before Jean’s call. Half an hour is the answer to that question. Neil thought he’d be sick, and he almost considered rolling the window down to empty out his dinner in an empty driveway.

They arrive in Charleston around two in the morning, but they only make it to the hospital twenty minutes later, falling over themselves in the lobby as Neil watches Andrew physically keep himself from pulling out a knife on a well meaning nurse. He considers it progress that he doesn’t as they are escorted towards Kevin’s room.

During the three years Neil has known and created a life around Kevin, he can’t recall one time where he saw Kevin look defeated. Needless to say, seeing him passed out on a hospital bed with deep and dark eyebags and frowned lips might defeat that conception. The sight is almost too sad, and it aches through Neil’s entire body like a sorely earned win on court: Jean is propped up in a chair right beside Kevin’s bed, their hands tangled childishly, and his expression is carefully blank as he doesn’t even turn to acknowledge Andrew and Neil standing in the doorway.

Not that he has to, anyways — Andrew takes in the sight for exactly three seconds before walking in long strides towards Jean and launching himself onto him, not enough for it to be a full-on fight but just the right amount of bite for it to be a threat. He pulls on Jean’s shirt to drag him uncomfortably close, yet Jean, unimpressed and thoroughly bored by the anger in Andrew’s face as he was, only stared back.

Quiet and threateningly, Andrew hisses, "You will tell us what is happening with him the _moment_ it happens. Do not stall, do not wait, or you will not live to regret it. I will not allow this to happen again. Do you understand?"

Jean drapes his gaze over Andrew lazily, the faintest quirk of an eyebrow tugging at his features. He opens his mouth to retort, but is cut by a string of incoherensible mumbles coming from Kevin’s lips, his voice muttered and blurry as he tries to form what seems to be a weak cry out. Andrew’s face falls impassible once more, his stare turning to Kevin like it couldn’t bear to be away, and he lets go of Jean’s shirt for the sole purpose of plastering himself by Kevin’s other side, taking the loveseat shoved at the corner of the room.

He doesn’t hold Kevin’s hand like Jean does, but his stare is so insistent that Neil wonders if Andrew is trying to get him to wake up through sheer embarrassment alone. He becomes an unmoving Gargoyle by Kevin’s side, then: watching him like a hawk ready to protect, which makes Neil briefly ponder on how much Andrew must have missed being able to guard, to hold, to put himself between Kevin and whatever has been eating at him lately.

Left with no side to take, Neil crams himself into the very end of Kevin's hospital bed, pulling his feet over his cross-legged lap and silently staring.

It’s a long time until someone breaks the silence, but Neil deems it progress that he was the one to do it.

“He’d been doing so well,” Neil murmurs, a mournful sound.

Andrew’s gaze shifts to him shortly, but it’s Jean who answers, tracing the edge of Kevin’s knuckles with his gentlest fingertips. “No one is permanently free of the Nest,” he states, “not even Kevin Day.”

Neil thinks that if someone could, then it would be Kevin, ever the overachiever. During all of these years, Kevin had wanted to live so badly — wanted to play, to win, to breathe with such fierce desire, such deep-rooted and oftentimes childish faith. He had clung onto life with tooth and nail and refused to let go of it even in the face of indescribable loss and abuse, like a little boy pressing his favorite stuffed toy to his chest. To see Kevin like this, defeated, felt like a knife deep in Neil’s stomach, because the years they spent together had made it clear that Kevin had enough hope to make up for Neil’s own unmovable cynicism, and he didn’t want to reevaluate that conception. He didn’t want to think that that person was not Kevin anymore.

He sighs out, “He's not going to make it if he keeps scaring us like this.”

“Be quiet,” Andrew snaps at him just as quickly, the urgency of his tone another stake pushed through Neil’s heart. The idea of Kevin _not making it —_ through the motions of life, through recovery, through the new and scary freedom he’d been handled — was a thick, iron-tasting flood of blood that neither of them wanted to swallow down, however real of a possibility it was.

“You know this, Andrew,” Neil replies, soft spoken, “he needs help.”

Jean observes Kevin for a few seconds before agreeing, uncharacteristic for him as it was. “There is only so much we can do to keep him from harming himself. None of us can protect him forever.”

The glare Andrew sends his way is set in stone. “I can try,” he declares.

“And what will you do?” Jean asks, as unconvinced as Neil felt. “Will you threaten his PTSD with a knife? Perhaps fistfight the bad dreams away? Shove food down his throat?” his voice is not sharp, but his words are. It reminds them of their impotence, and Neil hates it. “Kevin does not need anymore violence in his life.”

Andrew promptly ignores his last sentence by saying, “I will do what you were incapable of doing, as he collapsed under _your_ watch, not mine.”

Jean does not flinch, but Neil does. He drapes a kind hand over Kevin’s ankle, patting it over his pants, and tells them a much needed reminder: “The decision of whether he needs help or not is his to make. He is his own person.”

That statement makes their argument come to an abrupt halt. Andrew glares at Neil while Jean blinks at him. Neil is well aware that they both know he is right, but to sit here and watch Kevin be this defenseless, this unguarded — it’s too much. It makes him almost want to promise that he’s going to fistfight Kevin’s PTSD, too, nevermind how unlikely that is to happen. Impotence is too thick in the air; Neil is caught wondering if asphyxia is a state of mind.

Part of him wants to ask himself why — why would Kevin do this to his body? Why would he deprive himself of something as pinnaclar as food? — but the truth is that Neil knows well enough: children weaned on poison consider their own harm a duty to be fulfilled. Kevin wouldn't have felt it enough to just half-heartedly put himself through hell; he would only have been satisfied with his work if he ended up in a hospital bed, because if there is something mental illness knows how to be, it is to be competitive. Self-destruction is a full time job and the market for it is a busy, busy one.

There is no fifth they could have pleaded for this not to happen — it was out of their hands the second Kevin set his mind to it; a trainwreck waiting to happen while all they could have done was sit back and watch.

For a long time, no one moves. They sit in silence and drink too watery, too sugary hospital coffee, staring into nothing when looking at Kevin starts to feel like looking at a corpse. Neil manages to squish himself onto the loveseat Andrew was sat on, the pair of them pulled towards each other's orbit by nature, but Jean stays tense and still where he was when they arrived, still clutching Kevin's hand as if it was a lifeline. It's such a juvenile comfort, but Neil can't help but think it's protocol by now — how many times has Jean cradled Kevin's hand to himself, trying to protect a man whose life was nothing but ruins? How many times Jean has held onto Kevin to the point of claw marks, because he knew Kevin would let himself be afloat otherwise?

Jean is the first to drop, around five in the morning — the room is so quiet and vacant Neil has no choice but to watch as he slowly dozes off into the crook of Kevin's elbow, his cheek squished against Kevin's skin. It's such simple comfort: not hard earned, but easily given, as if touching Kevin was a second nature. Perhaps this is the intimacy of friends whose secrets have all been bared to each other before, of boys whose ties go back to childhood, and even earlier. Time has framed them into adult bodies but the heart, much like the water, doesn't forget; the heart always remembers. In Houdiniesque fashion, Neil is somewhat weary that one day Jean and Kevin might disappear into each other and never come back.

Andrew drops next, but only because Neil is there to barricade the rest of the room from touching him. He sends Kevin one last longing gaze, resigning himself from his post temporarily, before pressing his back to the wall and curling onto himself. Neil lets go of his own hoodie for Andrew to use it as a mock-up blanket, watching as he curls under the material. They were harsh people — that in itself guaranteed Neil that one day they would collapse, but they would never die bored — yet there was softness to them, every so often.

Not one person in this room loves life, but at least they could muster some sort of respect for it, if only out of the sheer nostalgia that comes with knowing you could have, perhaps once or twice in your life, been happy before. Nevertheless, they don't know how to die yet, and in lacking to know so, they live. There is nothing else to do.

Neil doesn't sleep.

He counts sheep.

One, two — there will always be a scare they won't be able to come down from. There will always be one last hospital visit.

Three, four — Neil doesn't believe in God, but he prays that he will die before Kevin, however soon that is.

Five, six — the absence will be so big Neil won't know how to believe it. He will ask them to show him the body, please, he's my best friend, please, I have to say goodbye, and they will not show him the body, because it isn't allowed, sir. You can't be here. Go back to the funeral.

Seven, eight — Neil wants to nurse every injury; to breathe life back into his lips; to argue with Kevin until he is distracted enough to be brought back to health, to ignore the beckoning of his own self-deterioration and tell him _no,_ Neil, that is not how you finish that drill, I've told you a million times before it's like _this,_ not this, see? Can't you learn?

Nine, ten — there is no way to make this suffering poetic; this trauma prosaic. Kevin's deep blue sadness has a plain, pale face with no charming smile or violet eyes: Neil wants to wrap his hands around its neck and tell it to never come back. Wants to take it to the Charleston shore and drown it there. Wants to be able to kill it without being left with his hands afterwards.

He doesn't sleep, but occasionally he dozes. When Kevin's eyes open, Neil is the only one there to keep proof it happened.

It’s so slow Neil wonders if he’s seeing things — in one moment he’s studying Kevin’s profile in the dimly lit room for a long, long minute, the shape of his nose and the curve of his lips, and in another he is staring right through Kevin’s open eyes, looking around the room but still unseeing. His eyes open like a gasp of air, clumsy and desperate, blinking for an eternity before they fall upon Neil, a bestowed curse. They are so green it is an event: Neil would like to highlight that Kevin’s eyes did much more than just looking. They happened to him.

Kevin opens his mouth to say something, anything, but the room is too warm and Kevin is too pale under the few stripes of light coming from the window — Neil is softly shaking his head before Kevin can even get the words through his mouth. It’s an implicit permission to drift back to sleep; an unspoken _We’ll talk about this when you’re feeling better._ His eyes focus on Neil for a second, flickers of life pushing through foggy fatigue, but he seems to understand it enough to let them fall closed once more, long eyelashes fanning over high cheekbones. It occurs to Neil that Jean might not be the only one who can understand Kevin without any words, after all.

He doesn’t doze off again after that, monitoring the rise and fall of Kevin’s chest with the same thrill of watching an Exy game, grateful for every gush of air that leaves Kevin’s nostrils. Neil’s tense muscles unwind, broken bones mending at each soft puff of breath and incoherently murmured word.

When Kevin’s eyes open for the second time, it is eleven in the morning and the three of them are huddled around the doorway, talking to a nurse whose instructions on how to encourage a loved one suffering from an eating disorder are mildly helpful. Maybe the reasoning behind what happens next is not love, in itself — maybe it just happens because Neil was the first person Kevin saw when he woke up —, nevertheless, Neil doesn’t want to think twice about it when what first leaves Kevin’s mouth is a confused, “Neil?” that has his heartstrings tying themselves into an intricate knot.

His head whips out so fast Neil is sure he hears his brain rattling against his skull as he cuts the conversation short to reach Kevin’s bed, Jean and Andrew in tow. The adrenaline crashes onto the room like a tsunami, Kevin’s pair of self-admittedly fucked up guardian angels taking post around his bed once more. Andrew’s hands are balled up into trembling fists from where he hides them in his coat, and he looks one breath away from losing control. Neil understands the feeling: having Kevin awake makes the hollowed out, unconscious version of him even more hurtful to reminisce.

When Andrew speaks, he does it quietly but furiously, between panicked breaths. “Kevin Day,” he says, fisting the front of Kevin’s shirt, “if you do this again, I’m going to kill you myself. Have I made myself clear? Do I need to spell it out for you? I said _call me when something happens._ That’s c-a-l-l m-e. Tell me you understand.”

Kevin stares at him for a quiet moment before he rasps out, “I thought you were asleep. I didn’t want to call.”

“I was not asleep,” Andrew looks as if he’s about to smash his own head against a wall, “and even if I was, I would have woken up. I would have driven you to the hospital, if you called. So, _why_ didn’t you call?”

“I just told you,” Kevin croaks out again, the dehydration doing little to nothing to ease his know-it-all nature. Jean offers him a bottle of water immediately, propping it to Kevin’s lips carefully, and Andrew lets his hand fall to the hem of Kevin’s shirt, firmly holding onto the fabric as if he was scared he would disappear. Neil stands beside Andrew somewhat awkwardly, watching as the other two fussed over him. Kevin coughs out again before repeating himself, “Neil?”

Neil reaches a hand to pat him on his knee. “Yeah?”

Kevin stammers for a second. “I never replied to your text. I was— typing it out, but then.” He motions around himself vaguely, movements small so as to not knock against Andrew’s head or Jean’s hands. “I think you were right."

"About what?"

"The Lightyears aren’t going to make it to the championships this year.”

Neil almost wants to laugh — in horror or relief, he doesn't know.

“No Exy talk at the hospital bed,” Andrew cuts the subject short, shoving Kevin back into a lying position with his free hand. Jean glares at him for that, but doesn’t complain. “Rest. Or I am going to suffocate you with this pillow.”

“No, you won’t,” Kevin retorts, burrowing further into the pillows anyways. “I’m tired of resting. I want to go home.”

Jean adjusts the sheet over him quietly, his lips pressed into a thin line, before softly murmuring, “Call your father.”

Kevin’s attention turns to him. “I thought you did already.”

He doesn’t answer straight away, tucking the sheets under Kevin’s body even if they all knew he would ruin Jean’s hard work in a few minutes when he got tired of lying down. “I called the people I imagined you would like to see waiting for you in a hospital room,” Jean limits himself to answering, bringing his chair closer to Kevin’s bed and sitting down. “I did not know if your father would react well.”

Neil chuckles dryly, ignoring Jean’s first comment. “Wymack is going to be angrier if he doesn’t hear about this.”

“I know,” Kevin bites down onto his bottom lip in thought. “Andrew?”

His hand still fisted on Kevin’s shirt, Andrew looks up, “What.”

“Can you— tell them?”

The Foxes. Neil distantly wonders what their reactions will be, but doesn't have to think a lot — the upperclassmen would send their well wishes, the Monsters would ask for details, and Kevin's father would call as soon as possible.

Andrew does tell them: a quick, dry text Neil watches him type out and press send. Not even a few minutes after, the first person to call the second the news find him — surprisingly, but maybe not that much — is Aaron. Neil watches as Andrew stares at the name in his phone for a second too long before picking it up, pressing it to Kevin's ear after a brief silence.

Kevin silently listens to whatever Aaron is saying, eyes focused, then softly replies, “If you wanted to tell me that you’re worried, you didn’t have to use that many cuss words.”

A pause; presumably an answer from Aaron’s line. Kevin says, “I’m not dying, Aaron. Shut up. No, I’m not. You’re not _my_ doctor. What do you mean why? You’re still in med school. That’s bullshit,” he flinches. “Stop yelling. I have a headache.”

Andrew puts a bit of distance between Kevin’s ear and the phone at that. “I don’t— Aaron. Okay. _Fine._ Not every — listen to me! —, it’s not the same thing. Cheerleading and Exy are completely different.” Another pause. “It means that it’s not the same physical exertion. Yes. Yes. I know. I’m not going to die. Your brother won’t let me.”

By his side, Andrew huffs, but doesn’t deny it. “Okay. You know my email, but I reiterate that you are not— you’re not a nutritionist! You’re not even done with med school! Aaron. Aaron, I’m going to end this call. Goodbye now. Text me later.” Kevin turns off the call easily, watching as Andrew retreats the phone once more.

Andrew doesn't leave his side the whole time, betraying his carefully crafted apathy, and Neil is — not for the first time — fascinated by their relationship. There is a mutual understanding there to the likes of nothing Neil has seen before, and the sheer reciprocity of it is disorientating: Andrew wants to protect Kevin and keep him under his wing just as much as Kevin wants to be protected and kept under Andrew's wing, and that, for Andrew, is as worthwhile as gold. Neil knows about jealousy, understands it, but when he thinks of them, he doesn't feel it. He thinks: _Andrew needs this. Kevin needs this_. _They need each other._ They live in a perfectly stable stalemate of giving and taking and they're always even; like Neil and Andrew are.

Sometimes Neil thinks Andrew would slash his chest open for Kevin to live in it.

Sometimes Neil thinks Kevin would walk into Andrew’s chest and never come back.

Sometimes — most times — Neil thinks he has no problem with that.

It would make both their lives so much easier; Andrew would not have to worry and Kevin would not have to fear. They’d live within each other’s bubbles and, with Kevin in Andrew’s heart, maybe he could love Neil with the same intensity Neil loves him. Maybe he could look at Neil with the same eyes Andrew does, and love him the same.

Kevin and Andrew broke each other’s hearts once. Everything in Neil chants _never again_ when he thinks about it, but he wouldn’t mind being caught in that crossfire for one last time.

He’s startled out of his thoughts at the sound of his phone ringing, Renee’s name appearing under a low battery warning that Neil promptly ignores as he picks it up, moving towards the doorway for a little bit of space. “Neil,” she greets him softly, cutting straight to the point, “how are you holding up? Has Kevin woken up yet?”

Neil leans against the doorhold, watching as Kevin weakly tries to wrestle the confination of his tucked-in blankets. Andrew is sitting stoically by his side, crossed legs holding up Kevin’s bag of domestic supplies that Jean brought from their apartment. “Yes, he is,” and then, a second later, “Andrew and I are fine.”

Renee hums. “What about Jean?”

Jean Moreau is currently holding a thick history book over his lap, a clear attempt at getting Kevin entertained enough to stay where he was, and so far the results to that plan seem mixed, but not pessimistic. “He is busy now,” Neil settles for saying, “but he is fine.”

After a moment of thoughtful silence, Renee asks, “How is Kevin?”

“He’s okay,” Neil sighs, excusing himself out of the room and into the hallway so he could delay the doctor’s words without worrying Kevin into an early grave. “It’s — it’s no permanent damage, but it’s what we already knew he had: an eating disorder. The doctor said it was the exhaustion and the starvation that got him to the point of fainting, but the anxiety might've been what tipped him off.”

“I see,” comes her soft answer. “How is Andrew taking it?”

Scrunching up his nose, Neil tells her, “How you’d imagine: he won’t leave Kevin’s side. I think he missed not being able to.”

There is a curt pause from her side of the line, but it’s not a noiseful one — she’s just silently considering what to say next. Renee does that a lot. “And how does that make you feel?” she asks, at last.

“What do you mean?” he replies, frowning. Neil is rarely ever taken aback nowadays, but he is no foreigner to the feeling when it comes to Renee; she is deeply unnerving. “I feel nothing about it. Having Andrew around helps Kevin, and I want him to get better.”

Humming, she agrees, “You’re right, Neil.” But Neil can’t help but think she sounds slightly disappointed by his answer. “Do you think I could drop by? Stephanie and I just got off the plane, and—” it’s a quiet moment until Neil realizes she must have been motioning vaguely from her side of the line. “It’s odd to be back in South Carolina.”

Renee had been off to the Peace Corps for the past two years — the fact she even came back at all was a surprise, but there she was, returning to South Carolina with nothing but a slightly healthier tan and a new house to make memories in with her adoptive mother. Neil is, for one, too curious about what brought Renee to a city like Charleston, but maybe he shouldn’t be; maybe he should just ask, even if he knew Renee wouldn’t give him more than a vague answer.

And, anyways — Renee is asking because she knows to expect that the atmosphere might be delicate right now. Neil is well aware that she would visit a hurt Fox anytime, any place, but to hear her ask for permission makes something kind and familiar stir in his heart nevertheless. The thought that she knew them enough to know that any outsider from their little three-person bubble might only cause unnecessary stress was as firm of a reminder as any that, though she was away, she hadn’t forgotten about them.

“Yes,” he finds himself answering not with his mouth, but with his heart. “Come. He needs to be surrounded by family.”

“Okay,” Renee replies, “I’ll see you in a few.”

The minutes between the moment the call ended and the moment another call came up were so short that Neil wondered if it was even a good idea to have Andrew deliver the news of Kevin’s hospitalization, because surely he hadn’t been specific enough for the Foxes’ to know Kevin was, indeed, as okay as he could be in the moment. Notwithstanding, Neil strides back into the hallway and picks up the call once more, this time in robotic familiarity.

It’s Nicky’s panicked voice that fills up his ears. “ _Neil,_ ” he pants, “is he okay? Are you guys okay? I mean— God, is everything okay? I sent Robin to class, I didn’t know what to do. Kevin would kill her if he knew she skipped class for him. Hell, _Andrew_ would kill her if he knew she skipped class for Kevin.”

They both knew he wouldn’t, but Nicky’s dramatics were not always based on factual evidence. “He’s alright. We’re just waiting for him to be discharged. We’re all okay, mostly, but—”

“—Andrew,” Nicky completes his sentence for him with a sigh, all knowing. “Did he even sleep? Or eat?”

“He slept a little,” Neil murmurs, “and we had coffee.”

Nicky huffs. “Coffee is not food,” he reprimands, but doesn’t derail. “What are you guys going to do? When will you be back?”

And, well, Neil knew they would have to leave Kevin alone in Charleston once more sooner or later, but that did not mean he wanted to be reminded of it, or that it didn’t cut through him as if chilly ice spikes. “I don’t know,” Neil answers, though he can tell a lie coming from his mouth when he sees it. “I’ll let you know when we do. Tell Robin he’s okay.”

“I will,” Nicky promises, then gentles: “Hey, kid, take care. Don’t let it grind you down, alright? Kevin is tough.”

Neil wets his lips. If only he could convince himself of that. “Yes, I know. I won’t. Bye, Nicky.”

He turns off the call before he can hear Nicky’s parting wish. Sometimes Neil thought that if he could stay very still, the tenderness he couldn't bear to carry wouldn’t be able to find him.

Neil doesn’t stall, and is comforted to know that Kevin is being swamped with phone calls the same way that he was as he walks back into the room, judging by how impatient Andrew looks while he presses his own phone to Kevin’s ear once more. Neil doesn’t have to ask to know who he’s talking to, because Kevin has a particular give when it comes to Wymack — he looks simultaneously like a little boy and a man who has been through too much to ever open heartedly invite a father into his life.

He tries, though. Hand to God, Neil swears that Kevin tries.

“I’m alright, dad,” Kevin croaks out the words with an edge of desperation to them, as if he wanted to believe them himself. “I didn’t know— I didn’t realize I was slipping. I’m sorr—” his sentence is cut short by Andrew’s hand coming up to pinch his arm, a clear order to give up the self-martyrization. Jean, who is now on the same side of Kevin’s bed as Andrew is, glares at his hand in warning. “ _Ow._ Andrew just pinched me.”

For a quiet moment, Kevin listens, then he says, “You don’t have to drop by. I’m okay. Yeah, it’s— I _am_. I couldn’t keep them from coming, but I’d expect a little bit more of sense from you, David. Of course I can call you that. Abby said I could. Well, ban me from it, then. You can’t. I’m a grown adult.” A short pause. “The season is about to start. You can’t slack off.”

At that, Andrew pinches Kevin’s arm again, and Jean bats his hands away as quickly as lightning. Neil hurriedly slips between the two of them, his body a physical barrier to guarantee that one would not murder the other, and Andrew’s glare could’ve cut through him if Neil cared to stare back at it. He didn’t care to, though; he’s gotten worse looks from Andrew as foreplay. “It will — Andrew, stop it — be okay,” Kevin sighs out. “I’m not alone. They’re here.” A curt silence is followed by, “Andrew, Neil and Jean. Yes, I know. It’s okay. Jean will be there for me when they leave.”

Neil suppresses a flinch.

Andrew doesn’t look any happier about Kevin’s last sentence than he is, but they both know they can't stay forever, no matter how much they would otherwise want to. The most they can do is three days off, and even that would already be a stretch with the season so close to starting.

“I will,” Kevin promises again, though Neil doesn’t know what he’s promising to do until his next words. “I’m— Okay. Yeah. I will eat. I promise.”

Andrew hijacks the phone from Kevin’s ear and presses it to his own, nonchalantly announcing, “He will eat because I will kill him if he doesn’t.”

Jean’s patience seems to be wearing thinner the more Andrew speaks, but Neil can’t help but recognize how concerned he is as he observes Kevin offer Wymack his goodbyes. How could he not recognize it, really, when he mirrors the feeling so intensely?

A few minutes later, it's Renee’s arrival that brings an onslaught of softer, kinder feelings to the room — Jean seems a lifetime more relaxed with her presence, and Kevin, gruff as he is, doesn’t pull away when Renee gently cradles his hand in both of hers, all of the good she could muster delivered into a soft-spoken speech Neil tuned out of in respect for Kevin’s reddening cheeks. Renee engages him in easy conversation afterwards, hooking Andrew onto it, and it’s with a lot of prodding and convincing that Neil manages to pry Jean out of the room for a coffee run. Jean’s face didn’t do so much as twitch while they left, but he glared at Andrew all the way to the exit, which was gladly reciprocated.

When they’re standing together in line, Neil nudges him with the subject that has been floating in his brain for the past few hours. “You know,” he says, staring out at the menu of this hospital’s shitty cafeteria, “you don’t have to be so defensive about Andrew. He cares about Kevin a lot.”

Jean scoffs, crossing his arms. He looks younger now — perhaps younger than Neil thought he was, back in the day — but his features remain tightly drawn in stone, unmovable and permanently unimpressed. Neil thinks Jean has a nice face, all things considered, and there is something quite charming about the scar cutting his eyebrows into two: it’s like looking into a mirror. “I’ve seen it,” Jean eventually answers, “and I am not impressed.”

Neil frowns. “Why do you say that?”

“Kevin was a mess during his first year in Palmetto,” Jean replies, looking at Neil as if he was a particularly slow child, “and all your lot did was get him drunk, hurt and scared. How’s that caring for someone?”

“We stood with him,” Neil felt the corners of his lips tug downwards, “we gave him space to be better.”

Jean huffs. “All you did was damage.”

Familiar faces or not, old habits die hard. Neil feels his tendencies to antagonism clench their fingers around his throat long before the words leave his mouth, but it’s too late to push them back, and so he says, “You don’t know what you’re talking about. And even if you did — then what? Do you think he'd been better off with the Ravens? How did that work out for you?”

He feels guilty about the words the moment they’re out into the wild, a side effect of living in civilization for the past three years, and clams his mouth shut. "I didn't mean that."

Even after all that went down, Neil Josten still gets mean when he’s nervous — like a bad dog. Jean offers him a blank once-over before uttering, in the height of his indifference, “It is impossible for you or the other midget to hurt my feelings. I have survived men much, much worse than you, Neil Josten, and I will not let you hurt Kevin again.”

Neil tries to swallow down the self-loathing that came with his viciousness, and weakly protests, “You can’t make that decision for him. You can’t take him away from us.”

“I will not,” the other man replies easily, folding the sleeves of his long coat as they approach the counter, “because it is not my place to decide. But if Kevin realizes all you've done to him was damage, there is nothing I can do. I won't let you hurt him again, that's for sure.”

They’re called to order after that, and Neil is mildly grateful for the interruption — he had no idea how to answer Jean, how to convince him that, while they might have failed before, they would never risk it now. His words only find him again once they’re standing by the door to Kevin’s hospital room, coffee cups in hands as Neil motions for Jean to wait before pushing the door open. “No one will hurt him,” he says, quite like a promise, quite like a prayer for which no words exist, “I won’t let them.”

Jean studies his face. “Convince him,” is his nonchalant answer, and then he’s walking into the room, leaving Neil behind to figure out what that meant.

It sounded like a challenge. It tasted a lot like hope.

And though Nathaniel Wesninski might have not liked either, Neil Josten loved both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm dayurno on tumblr and as always if you want to check out snippets of this fic you can look under the #the name of the game tag in my blog! :) have a wonderful day. i'll see you on november 10th


	3. when i break, it's in a million pieces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the plot chickens

There is a part of the human chest they say that if you strike it hard enough, the person's heart explodes. It sounds like such a ridiculous lie that Neil has no choice but to believe it is the utmost, absolute truth.

Seeing the starstruck look on Kevin's face when Andrew hoisted him up from his hospital bed with an arm around his waist and the words "Let's get some food into you, and then we will fix this idiotic mess that you've made," was enough to make Neil wonder if science knew they should name that part of the human chest after Kevin Day. Surely, Neil felt stricken.

Kevin trusts — and loves — Andrew so fiercely, against all of the odds that should have driven them apart. They fall together so easily, too: pushing and pulling, creating empty spaces so the other could fill them up, caring and being cared for. It was a brutally soft thing, but it wasn't clumsy; it was love on purpose, a conscious effort they constantly look away from. The fine drizzle of that Charleston morning couldn’t have washed away the thickness of infatuation in the air when the small lot of them rushed into the Maserati, Kevin squished between Jean and Renee like a child smothered by his parents.

Neil keeps catching glimpses of him through the rearview mirror, green eyes focusing and unfocusing like a particularly flicker digital camera, and looking away is surprisingly difficult now that Neil doesn’t want to lose him from sight ever again. Where does daylight go after the nightfall? How can the earth afford to look away from the sun, even if for a second? It’s the same principle, in a way. You look because you’ve looked at everything else in the world, and nothing made you feel quite as good. Nothing made you feel quite as right. You look because looking away would be a crime you don’t want to be forgiven for. He was simultaneously terrified of losing Kevin and preparing for the day it happened, committing every curve to memory before it was too late to straighten them out.

Perhaps that was how Kevin felt when he found out Neil was Nathaniel, years ago, but there is a world of circumstance between that moment in time and the present; now Neil can afford to tell Kevin the truth, but never goodbye.

He wouldn’t know how to part from Kevin if it came with a rulebook, anyways. And, for one, so wouldn’t Andrew: whatever took root in that hospital room will be impossible to sever now. It will kill Andrew — it will kill the both of them — to have to break this off when they return to Palmetto, now a Kevin-less pair. Neil is already nursing the wounds that are yet to come from this separation.

They eat in a restaurant near the apartment, eyes locked down and hands tentative as they murmur over the sound of clinking cutlery, Renee’s voice a soft comfort Neil allows himself to revel in, however short-lasting he’s sure said comfort is. Andrew does not ask when he announces they’ll be staying with Kevin for the next three days — it does not come off as debatable, and so no one tries to pretend it is. Jean doesn’t appear particularly bothered by the intrusion, but Kevin looks at them curiously for a second too long before turning his gaze to his own plate, seemingly pondering over it. He is impossible to read on a day like this, and Neil doesn’t think he’d share his thoughts if he were asked to do it; it’s a game of wondering when it comes to Kevin and what he feels.

Neil has to battle the urge to ask, because he never wanted to know so bad as he does now what Kevin thinks of him, of them, and what comes to his mind when Neil’s name is brought up. Does Neil cross his mind as often as Kevin crosses his? If they were to part, would Kevin remember his face with the same precision Neil would remember his? Kevin has seen him a million times before, sure, but has he _paid_ attention to the slight crook of Neil’s nose, the battered freckles on his cheeks, the lean course of his neck and hands? Has Kevin looked at him, even if just once, and thought he couldn’t bear to look away? Neil has never wanted to know something as badly as he wants to know if this obsession goes both ways; if Neil is to Kevin what Kevin is to Neil, no roundabouts.

Does Kevin think of Neil when he’s drinking — or perhaps when he used to —, feeling the burn of whisky down his throat and wondering how heavy Neil’s mouth would weigh against his own, wondering how long would it take for Neil to push him away and storm out of the room like Neil does whenever _he_ is drinking? Does Kevin ever think of calling, or is that a privilege only Andrew gets to have? God, _what_ does Kevin think?

Would Kevin even like him, if he knew Neil in his entirety — if he saw the extent of his scarring and the dents on his torso, his ribs which show because putting on weight is still so hard? Neil wants Kevin to like him, but does he want Kevin to _know_ him? He never wanted to be at odds with Kevin; he never wanted Kevin to hate him; but is he ready to walk that walk, to make himself someone Kevin could love? That is the question, in the end. To be known, to be loved, is to be at risk of being hunted.

Oftentimes Neil wishes his mother was still there to tell him what to do, who to love, what to say and what to look like: so far he thinks he’s been getting it wrong. So far he’s been fighting with his not-boyfriend, allowing Kevin to relapse and end up in a hospital bed and ignoring Nicky’s calls, however well-intentioned and loving they are. So far Neil has been staring around, searching for his peers, cluelessly trying to figure out what he should do now that there is so much future left for him to use. So far Neil has been greedy, cruel, thoughtless, antagonistic; everything Nathaniel Wesninski was. Everything Neil Josten shouldn’t be now that he has the choice not to be.

Nostalgia is debilitating and impossible to run away from. It makes Neil wonder if sometimes Kevin misses the darkness of the Nest, the security of Riko’s voice thundering over his, the controlling ways by which abuse can sometimes look like love under a certain light.

“I’m going to shower,” is the first thing Kevin announces the second they step into their apartment, already squirming out of his sweatshirt as soon as he’s out of the doorway. By the time that they’re back from the restaurant, the day’s already pending to its soft-spoken end, four in the afternoon slowly melting into five, six, seven and so on.

The apartment looks just the same as it did a month ago, though perhaps a bit more loved now, with a coat thrown over a chair and a stack of books sitting atop of the dinner table. Jean silently strides to the coat hanger, taking Renee’s with his and neatly propping them up, before turning to Kevin and instructing, “Show your guests the spare room first.”

 _Your guests._ Neil’s insides churn at the word; he does not feel like a guest in Kevin’s house. He feels like a guest in Kevin’s life.

Kevin hums in agreement, folding his sweatshirt under his arm. By Neil’s side, Andrew hides his hands in his pockets. Kevin motions for them to follow him as he disappears into the hallway, and Neil has no choice but to trail behind his broad back, the sound of Andrew’s footsteps following shortly after.

The trio of them stand by the doorway, Kevin’s side brushing against Neil’s shoulder and emanating warmth that makes his insides uncurl from their tight coil and reach out for it. Andrew, from Kevin’s other side, stands close enough for Neil to notice how easy it would be if Kevin just leant down and rested his chin on Andrew’s head. It’s a disturbing thought; almost as disorienting as it’s heartwarming. Their bodies would fit neatly together.

“There is no guest bathroom,” Kevin informs them, walking into the room and sitting on the very end of the well-made bed. The spare room is what one would expect of a spare room: boringly impersonal and squeaky clean. The sheets are a muted blue, the comforter looks scarily thin, and the lamp beside the bed is too bright when Kevin taps it on. “You’ll have to use mine.”

“That’s odd,” Neil replies, tentatively sitting by Kevin’s side. The walls to the spare bedroom are a creamy shade of beige that makes the room look infinite under the faint light, every window tightly shut. “How come there are two suites but no guest bathroom?”

Kevin huffs. Andrew is still by the doorway, eyeing the room with a blank expression. “It’s an old building that was remodeled a few years ago. I think they don’t expect their tenants to invite guests in.”

Andrew offers him a dry look as he settles on the only chair in the room, beside the bed like a sore thumb. It probably didn’t fit in the living room, so they stored it away. “In your case, they were right,” he points out, interlacing his fingers with each other on top of his lap.

“I have guests over more than I would like to,” Kevin tells him, falling back into the bed with a soft thud. “Though I suppose I won’t be having many for the next three days.”

Neil gives him a weird look. “It’s your house.”

He utters a non-committal sound. “I don’t want to see anyone,” Kevin admits, fidgeting with his fingers once more. They’re bony, slender; pianist fingers, like Nicky’s. The tanned skin contrasts with the pink-paleness of his palms, two shades clashing where they meet. How many times has Neil watched Kevin’s hands, firmly gripped around a racquet, a pen, a bottle of vodka, his own wrist? “But the Stingrays will send someone to check in on me.”

“How thoughtful,” Andrew muses, deadpan.

“They are,” he confirms without looking back at Andrew, “I missed out on their dinner party.”

Kevin doesn’t look particularly upset that he did, but there is an edge to it — a distant longing, perhaps. “At least you won’t have to interact with Sidney’s kid,” Neil points out, fighting the urge to lie besides Kevin; the effort to keep his spine straight is almost Herculean.

He motions dismissively towards Neil. “Max is a nice child,” Kevin hums, absentminded, “looks just like you did when you were a kid. Blue eyes, ginger hair, freckles and all. He is this small,” — Kevin makes a point out of pushing his palms close together in exaggeration — “and he likes Exy. He wants to be a dealer, but he’s too clumsy. He’ll grow up to be a striker.”

“And you are already casting him for your future little league,” Andrew comments, dry and monotone for a change, “or perhaps your future college team.”

“It’s not like that,” Kevin huffs, the harsh line of his eyebrow dipping in a gentle furrow. He rolls on his side to stare at Andrew’s face, and Neil forcefully peels his eyes away from Kevin’s back. “He’s just… Nice. He’s never going to be Fox material. He’s too loved.”

“You,” Andrew starts, “are too young to have a child.”

Kevin rolls on his back once more. “I am,” he agrees easily, “which is why I do not want one. I’m just telling you.”

Neil gently rasps his knuckles against Kevin’s forehead. “Go have your shower.”

“Don’t send me off like that.” Kevin bats his hand away weakly, but pushes himself out of the bed with a mellow sigh. Each year Kevin’s voice becomes softer and softer — Neil is starting to fear that it’ll eventually disappear. He stops by the doorway, leaning all six feet of him against it with the grace of a baby foal, and stares back at them with stupidly big green eyes, “Tell me or Jean if you need more blankets or pillows. Andrew,” he calls, making Andrew turn to him, “the door has a lock from the inside. The key is under the pillow.”

He disappears into the hallway before Andrew can answer, but Neil knows Andrew would not have answered it either way. They sit in silence for exactly three seconds until Andrew springs upwards and reaches for the key underneath the pillow, pocketing it nonchalantly and moving to stand in front of Neil, who hasn’t moved an inch since he felt the press of Andrew’s knees against his own, closeness sorely missed. Looking up to meet Andrew’s gaze, a smile tugs at the corner of his lips, “Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” Andrew answers, leaning down to press a heavy kiss onto his mouth. Neil sighs happily, nuzzling against Andrew’s cheek, but it’s as quick to go as it was to come — with the door open and under Kevin’s roof, it’s unlikely they’ll get even close to making out. Andrew tugs at Neil’s hair for a quick second before letting go, huffing a soft, “You think he’ll drown in the shower?”

Neil chuckles. “I think you just want an excuse to dote on him.”

“Someone has to,” Andrew tugs at Neil’s hair again, this time a bit harder. Neil opens his legs for Andrew to stand between them, the fit of their bodies together as natural as a sunflower turning to the sun. “You are not doing well,” he states, not one bit of it a question.

“No,” Neil agrees softly, turning his head into Andrew’s hands. “I don’t like seeing him like this. I don’t like— this,” and when he says this, he wonders if Andrew knows that he means more than just Kevin’s relapse. Neil debates on whether he should or not for a short second before admitting, “I hate everything that makes Kevin sad. I wish I could— erase the Nest from his memory. Erase Riko. Erase everything. Set the slates clean.”

Andrew’s hand cradles his face, the pad of his thumb brushing against the scar where Neil’s perfect tattoo would have been, and presses his lips into a thin line before humming, “That means you would erase yourself.”

“I don’t care,” Neil replies, the sound of it stuck in the limbo between a lie and a truth. The idea of Kevin forgetting him is hurtful as it is, but Neil thinks it would be worth the sacrifice. “I’d find him and teach him Exy and we would be just like we are now, but better.”

“Hm,” Andrew hums once more, tapping his pointer finger against Neil’s temple in thought, “and where would I fit in that equation?”

It’s such a stupid question to ask when Andrew is in every inch of Neil’s thoughts, a constant delirium he doesn’t want to pull away from, but Neil gives him the full answer anyways: “You would help me find him, of course. Maybe it would be in Ireland; maybe not. Maybe in this timeline he would have been Coach’s son from the beginning,” he ponders, genuinely invested in such a world, “so we would still have met him in the Foxes. Then — I think you’d protect him anyways, even if he couldn’t give you anything in return. I think you would just look at him and know. Maybe in this timeline there is nothing to make you sad, too.”

“Two birds, one stone,” Andrew mutters, the brief nature of his answer urging Neil to continue with his daydream. “Would I know about the life he had in this timeline?”

“I’d tell you.” Neil taps his fingers over Andrew’s torso gently, an automatic gesture he came to understand means _Idiot_ in their language. “We’d sit on the roof and think, _how could life treat him like this, even in another timeline?_ but we would forget about it because it wouldn’t matter. The same way this,” — he motions vaguely, trying to communicate the incommunicable — “doesn’t matter. It’s not real. But I wish it was. I really wish it was.”

Andrew taps Neil’s temple once more. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Would you erase your life on the run, too? Your father?”

Neil hesitates. “Maybe. I’d erase the bad parts, but I’d keep the ones I could use for protecting you. And Kevin.”

He studies Neil’s face for so long Neil thinks this is the end of their conversation, silence stretching on. Andrew doesn’t pull away, though — he commits Neil to memory the same way Neil traces the edges of his features with his eyes, in no rush because he knows Andrew is not going anywhere. Because he has all the time in the world to look at Andrew and memorize every curve, every dip and plan, every mole and every freckle. Because Andrew is another thing Neil can’t bear to look away from.

“I do not like it either,” Andrew eventually confesses, after he seems to find what he was looking for in Neil’s face, “the graduation and the distance. Seeing him like this.” A pause. “The things that sadden him. I do not like them, either.”

Something in Neil shatters with relief; a recognition of sorts that eases the hard spots of his heart, the ones with a knack for shaming its soft counterparts. He sighs an infinite breath, elephant-like and so heavy to carry, before murmuring, “This now, this us — we will be okay.”

Neil could have said _I love Kevin and I hate everything that makes him sad;_ could have said _I think Kevin might have been dead until you found him;_ could have said _I realize now that Kevin was never mine_ ; but he knows Andrew can understand it by the tone of his voice alone. There is a world of _what ifs_ and longing from Neil to Kevin and, when Andrew acknowledges it, he also sheds light on his own _what ifs,_ his own longings, the parts of their story only the two of them could explain to Neil. It was a gratifying experience, a beautiful yet strange ordeal — to accept yourself as unknowing, and thus grant your lover the power of holding knowledge over you.

“We are okay,” Andrew reminds him, pulling away from the weave of muscle and memory they’ve made out of themselves and smoothing over his long sleeved shirt, the sudden distance pinpointing the absent warmth of Andrew’s hands even more. “ _He_ will be okay,” he corrects Neil, “because he does not have my permission to die yet. And I will not let him.”

Neil huffs a giggle, _finally_ falling into the bed and feeling the tight knots of his spine unwind in a harmonic symphony of holy relief. His eyes close involuntarily, letting the faint pull of a cozy atmosphere lull him into a daydream haze, and Andrew’s footsteps are a soft, distant sound when the door closes behind him. It is true that Neil has gone for longer without sleep, but he hasn’t had to in a while — the exhaustion of the night and the weight of food on his stomach make him spread on the bed like a starfish, opening wide for the sun.

He doesn't sleep — how could he when the memory of Kevin in a hospital room is so fresh in his mind? — but he does think. He thinks of the life Kevin could've had hadn't Kayleigh Day crashed her car, years ago; the world he could've experienced, the love he could've been freely given. He thinks of the life Andrew could've had if Cass Spear hadn't birthed a son, if someone — someone anywhere in the world, someone with a good heart — had taken him in sooner than Nicky did, because by then the damage was already irreversible. Neil thinks of the _what ifs,_ the small things in both of their stories that changed their lives forever; not because they were doomed from the start, but because fate was not looking up. Because fortune hadn't favored them. Because somewhere, sometime, someone rolled a dice and decided they deserved to suffer, and so they did.

It felt painful to the point of irony; to the point of comedy. Neil has played all of his cards, now — there is nothing he can do anymore except patch them up in the aftermath of grief, of misery, of pain. It didn't feel like enough, but then again, so very rarely Neil felt like enough that it became common by now.

He drags himself out of bed per Kevin’s request, if only because his Exy ban had been lifted and he refused to not make good use of it. Part of Neil thinks the only reason Andrew is putting up with the Exy related documentary Kevin sets on the TV as they silently have dinner is that he knows Kevin wouldn’t have a meal at all if he couldn’t distract himself from the fact that he was eating in the first place. He doesn’t finish more than one and a third slice of pizza, but that’s okay — Neil eats his leftovers and listens intently as he goes off about a certain player from his mother’s time, hands shaky but lively as he lists off her strong and weak points. Andrew, who’s sitting on the far, far end of the dinner table, doesn’t have any input to give, but silently watches Kevin through his bangs like he’s afraid he’ll drop dead at any second.

Kevin won’t, of course, but Neil understands the feeling. Understands that sometimes one wrong move can send someone into a spiral of grief and regret that they can’t, don’t know how to come back from.

Though Andrew and Neil were stony brides in the face of worry, they soon came to find out that Robin, for all her power and might or lack thereof, was not. The news found her a bit later than most — by the time she ringed every single cellphone in the apartment, Kevin was already well past his breaking point, as healthy as he could possibly be after everything that went down. When Kevin, just minutes after dinner, settled beside Neil on the couch with his laptop propped on his lap and a sorry look on his eyes, it took Robin two seconds to accept his Skype call with a atlantic-deep frown to her otherwise soft, open features.

“Kevin,” she softly murmurs from her side of the line, Aaron and Nicky’s dorm serving her a background as she leans as close to the camera as it is physically healthy to do, brown eyes huge and round. Robin doesn’t scold him — she knows there’s no use, she knows he’s heard it all from Andrew before, she knows she can’t find it in herself to do it —, doesn’t tell him he’s a sick, sick man; she just stares, as if she couldn’t believe it was him. “You didn’t tell me,” Robin says at last, a hint of short-lived betrayal in her voice.

Neil knew the extent of Kevin and Robin’s relationship — knew _she_ was the reason Kevin came back to the monsters, to Andrew, at all. It was a clumsy type of mutual admiration and compromise that Neil could understand from his own times as a freshman under Kevin’s guidance, but it always managed to leave him feeling a bit curious over how gentle Kevin could find it in himself to be when it came to Robin. He wasn’t soft, because Kevin was never soft, but he was kind; careful; a figment of his best intentions.

Kevin huffs slowly. “There was no point in worrying you during your classes. I’m an adult, Robin, and I don’t need you to take care of me.”

The corner of Robin’s lips tug downwards ever so slightly, the thread of worry present in every stitch of her face. “And I don’t need you to protect me either,” she reminds him as if on cue, tracing Kevin’s silhouette with his eyes the same way Andrew does; checking for damage. “How are you feeling?”

Not _are you well?_ , because no matter how good of a pretender Kevin is, she knows — they know — he isn't. “Better,” he limits himself to answering, which is neither here nor there, but Neil supposes it’s the most they can get. Kevin stammers for a few seconds before saying, “I should have warned you, but I did not want to interfere with your life or your game.” He pauses. “I did not want to fail you. I still believe you can make it to Court.”

“I don’t care about making it to Court as much as I care about you,” Robin firmly answers, leaving no space for Kevin to disagree or rail against her argument. She’s learning, Neil thinks; or at least taking a page out of Andrew’s book and making it her own. “Are Neil and Andrew there?”

Neil pops his head into the frame, his head knocking against Kevin’s shoulder as he does so. “Hi,” he greets.

“Are you taking care?” she hums, her face falling stoic. Whatever worrisome emotion that was plastered over her face when she first picked up the call was not Neil’s to see. “Of yourselves and him, I mean,” Robin clarifies.

“We’re fine, Robin,” Neil promises her, hooking his chin over Kevin’s shoulder. He’s still staring at the camera weirdly, as if he couldn’t fathom Robin caring more about him than she did about Exy, but he comes to life when Neil’s skin touches his, breaking out of her spell. “We’re all fine. One piece, really. We got Kevin to eat _pizza_ , even.”

Robin studies Kevin for a long second before turning to Neil. “Yeah?” she asks, “That’s nice. Next you should get him to eat fast food.”

Kevin scrunches up his nose in disgust. “I’m allergic.”

“No, you’re not,” Jean tells him as he walks past the living room, hair wet from his shower. He stops by the arm of the couch to offer Robin a curt wave of hello before continuing his path to the kitchen. “That was a lie they told you in the Nest.”

“ _Regardless,_ ” Kevin ignores him, “I would still be violently ill if I ate it. I don’t reckon you called to discuss my eating habits, though.”

“Well,” she replies, sinking further on what Neil thinks is one of the beanbags Nicky took with him when he moved out. “I called because I wanted to see you and check for damage.”

Neil chimes in with, “Andrew already did it!” at the same time Kevin huffs a, “There’s no need to.”

Robin chooses to ignore the latter and answer to Neil, instead: “I’m betting he did, but there are things you need to see with your own eyes.”

“Robin, I’m perfectly okay—” Kevin begins to tell her, but he’s interrupted by the sound of a door slamming loudly and the soon-after tell of Andrew’s footsteps in the hallway.

“Oops,” he says when he reaches the living room, still drying off his hair with a towel and wearing Kevin’s shortest, tightest clothes, because neither of them had cared to bring anything when they set off to Charleston in the middle of the night. The sweatshirt — an orange one Neil assumes Kevin got as soon as he arrived at Palmetto, back when he was probably a violent state of undernourished — is long, but wearable; the pants are rolled up to Andrew’s ankles. Neil avoids his eyes from him as quickly as he avoids the sudden feeling of satisfaction that curses through him at the thought of Andrew wearing Kevin’s clothes.

Made wordless by the sudden noise, Kevin turns the laptop around so Robin and Andrew could see each other. Neil can’t see her, but he can imagine she’s making the specific face she makes when she spots Andrew across the room — a mix of relief and recognition that never quite goes unchecked. “Child,” Andrew greets, unmoved as can be, “I see you’ve been bothering Kevin sooner than expected. Who told you, I wonder?”

Robin makes a noise that could be both indignance and protest. “I heard Nicky and Aaron talking about it. When were you planning to tell me? After you got back?”

“Yes,” Andrew curtly answers, placing the wet towel around his neck and staring at the camera, unimpressed.

“ _Why_?” Robin asks, the sound of it strident even through the computer. Instinctively, Kevin brings the camera back to him and Neil, probably trying to spare her from the inevitable boredom sitting over Andrew’s features.

The latter approaches them carefully, like a cat, and perches himself on the arm of the couch, by Kevin’s side. He doesn’t crane his neck to be seen over the camera, but he does kick and squirm until his feet were resting on Kevin’s lap and, subsequently, turning the laptop to him. “Because,” he tells her, “you are a child.”

“I’m nineteen.”

When Andrew was nineteen, Neil vaguely remembers him swearing his life away on a penny for Kevin’s honor and picking fight after fight with a mafia reject. He doesn’t comment on it, though, because he knows Andrew desperately wants Robin to have a different life than the ones they led. “I know your age,” Andrew impassively replies. “He is well, see? All limbs intact. He will be back to you in no time, and you will be able to check it for yourself.”

She huffs, but Kevin nods in agreement to Andrew’s words. “I’m okay, Robin. I promise.”

Kevin doesn’t lie to anyone but himself, and keeps to his word a lot more often than not; Neil finds himself wanting to believe that he is okay. Robin presses her lips into a thin line. “I don’t like this,” she confesses at last, “I don’t like being away from you.”

 _I don’t like this,_ Neil had told Andrew. _I don’t like it either,_ Andrew had replied. Missing Kevin was contagious.

“It would have happened just the same if I were still in Palmetto, kid,” Kevin clumsily attempts at a reassurance, the _kid_ slipping from his mouth a perfect symmetry to Wymack’s voice. “Robin, let it go. I’m okay. It’s not your job to worry about me.”

“Yes,” Neil agrees. “It’s ours, see.” He motions between himself and Andrew, the latter making no move to disagree with his statement.

Robin stays silent for a second before resigning herself with a short, “Okay.” It wasn't enough to wash her frown away, but it loosened her shoulders; untightened her muscles. Neil thought Andrew's influence on her was as telling as the sun. "I have…" she stammers for a second, "I have to go. Nicky's taking me out to dinner."

Andrew hums, "There you have it. Don't fret, child. Let the adults take care of this."

She doesn't answer, but offers them a curt wave of goodbye before turning off the call. Robin was a chronic worrier, her bites too big for her mouth, but Neil thought there was unbelievable fierceness to it. She was a monster, but only in the ways that mattered — with her knuckles never clean, her love never palatable and her life never over, Robin belonged with them. She was quick beyond her legs; a fox chasing its own tail. Neil loved, loved, loved her, in spite of everyone else that didn’t.

And then they were three. Andrew reaches for the laptop the second the call is turned off and pulls it away from Kevin’s clutch easily, placing it on the coffee table beside the couch and turning it off. “You will get a headache if you stare at a screen for too long,” is his excuse when Kevin reaches back for it and Andrew bats his hands away.

“I will have a headache regardless,” Kevin protests, trying to push through the barrier that is Andrew’s body perched up on the arm of the couch like a gargoyle protecting its place of worship. “Andrew, there is literally nothing else to do. Let me watch a game or something.”

“Or something,” Andrew bats his hands away again, clear warning in his tone. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s almost time for The Great British Bake Off.”

Kevin blinks at him for one second too long before turning to Neil abruptly, as if to check if Neil had heard the same thing that he did. When met with the same nonchalance, Kevin points a suspicious finger in Andrew’s direction. “Since when do you watch that?”

Neil knows Andrew will watch anything on television as long as it’s entertaining enough, but the confusion on Kevin’s face is so good-natured and irreparably endearing that he might have to keep that knowledge obscure. “Since now,” Andrew tells him, which is neither a lie nor the truth, but Neil can appreciate that he’s trying, “and so will you. Where is the remote?”

“Andrew.”

“Where?”

“ _Andrew_.”

Pushing through Kevin’s body easily, Andrew ignores the calling of his name to yank the remote from where it stood between Neil and Kevin’s thighs, returning to his spot shortly after. “You will shut up and you will enjoy it,” is what Andrew says, at last, as he flips through channels.

And sometimes it is easy like that: sitting in Kevin’s living room, the pair of them wearing Kevin’s clothes, the unforgettable smell of home drenching Neil’s neck, elbows, wrists, knees. It feels like coming home; like returning to native land; like being welcome in a town you were exiled of for too long. Neil hadn’t known how much he missed this — them, together, coexisting — until he lost it, and he doesn’t know how he will ever part from it once he has to.

Neil doesn’t pay attention to the show — it’s an episode Andrew already made him watch before, anyways —, but he does pay attention to the sight just beside him, so close he could reach out and gather it with his hands: Andrew and Kevin, their sweatshirts taken from the same wardrobe, their eyes trained forward, every so often murmuring something about a contestant they found unsightly. It felt so _right_ ; like it was just a random Saturday night, they had just gotten back from a dinner out, and no one had even batted an eye at it. It made Neil want to cry — the smallness, the simplicity of it. A world where the three of them could do this every night for the rest of their lives, until they were old and gray and couldn’t stand looking at screens anymore.

A world where they could bicker about what to have for dinner; a world where they could have their own movie collection so they wouldn't have to take from Nicky’s anymore; a world where the sheets are blue and the walls are white and no one ends up in the hospital; a world where Kevin gets back from the store with the wrong cereal but Andrew eats it anyways; a world where Neil breaks the glassware on accident and they have to buy a new jar; a world where Kevin waits for them at the register, in his bright yellow sweater, and doesn’t hear them when they call him from the other side of the store; a world with three slippers by the doorway, three mugs in the sink, three plates on the dinner table, three toothbrushes in the bathroom, three Exy teams to keep track of, three names addressed in Christmas presents.

Neil loved the number three: it was the number on Andrew’s jersey and the number of pats Matt gave on his back after a good game and the number of colorful bracelets in Robin’s wrists. It was the number of _them_ ; and Neil would drown in it if he could.

The realization should’ve startled him, but it didn’t. How could it, when Neil hadn’t known what he wanted until he met Kevin and Andrew? How could it? How could he ever be startled, disgusted, repulsed, ashamed by this wanting, when Neil has only dealt in repression for so long?

It works like this: Kevin falls asleep first.

It works like this: Neil pulls on his sweatshirt to wake him up.

It works like this: Andrew, Neil and Kevin brush their teeth side by side.

It works like this: they linger awkwardly by Kevin’s doorway the second his bedroom door closes behind them.

It works like this: three minutes in bed, and Neil is out.

It works like this: he dreams of three.

The next morning, Kevin is the last to wake up in the entire apartment, and it comes as no surprise. Neil sits by the counter with an apple on his hand as Jean gently knocks on Kevin’s door to get him to wake up.

There would be no rush to wake him up, Neil suspects, if Yonah Abeles wasn’t standing in the middle of their living room with a paper bag on her hands and her long, long curly hair hugging her broad shoulders. Neil thinks she’s a sight to be seen, standing only a few inches taller than Andrew in a homely sweater and a pleated skirt, the Roman slope of her nose probably worth as much as the Maserati parked outside of Kevin’s apartment complex. Neil is torn between striking up a conversation with one of the best strikers in the Exy industry and gaping quietly from the sidelines as she curiously pokes around Jean’s houseplants.

“Kevin, you have a guest,” Jean tells him as soon as he storms into the kitchen, not offering anything or anyone a mere look as he beelines for the fridge. Andrew, from where he sipped on coffee by Neil’s side, scoffs at the poor manners.

Kevin turns to the sound of Jean’s voice, back to the living room, and pops a grape on his mouth. “I don’t know anyone,” he replies, matter-of-factly.

“Let’s hope River never finds out you said this, then,” Yonah’s voice finds them sooner than she does, the grave of her tone impossibly classy as it curls in Neil’s ears like a purr. She slides into the stool next to Jean easily, leaning her elbows against the counter, and Kevin jumps in surprise at the sound of her voice.

“Yonah,” he utters, dumbfounded.

“I’m glad you remember my name,” she says, thoroughly unimpressed. Neil tries not to ogle too much, but it’s hard when he has a mental list of every single one of her achievements right on the back of his mind. Yonah throws the paper bag in Kevin’s direction and he catches it on reflex, effortless as if second nature. _Again,_ Neil tries not to ogle. “The team pitched in. We got you some chocolates. River,” she motions vaguely, “you’ll see.”

Kevin stares at her. “The team,” he echoes.

Yonah huffs. “Sarah’s idea, Sidney’s support, yadda yadda, it’s how they are. Open the damn bag.”

Tentatively, Kevin leans his stomach against the far end of the counter and starts pulling out the contents of the bag with wide eyes: a turquoise bead necklace and a chocolate package Neil knows he won’t eat. “A necklace,” Kevin slowly considers.

“Handmade,” the corner of Yonah’s lips pulls itself into a smirk, “haven’t you gotten yourself quite the admirer?”

Jean — hand to _God_ — suppresses a snort. A _snort._ Neil didn’t even know he could do that. Kevin continues to stare at her blankly. “Why?” he asks at last, motioning towards the gifts as if they were a foreign addition to the periodic table. “They’ve already contacted me. Sarah, too. There was—”

“—No need, I know,” Yonah completes his sentence before Kevin gets the chance to. “It’s a get-well-soon gift from us. Take it, will you? I don’t want to be the one to tell them you refused their chocolates. Throw them in the trash for all I care, but take them.”

Kevin blinks owlish, holding the necklace and the chocolates on both of his hands as if Yonah had just spat on them. Instinctively, Andrew shakes a palm in front of his eyes to break him out of it, a curious look to his eyes. “I mean,” Kevin splutters once present again, “I will. Take them, I mean. Thank you. Um,” he puts down the gifts carefully, “would you, um, like a coffee? Something?”

Yonah looks like it’s taking everything in her to not burst into laughter though she soldiers on, jumping out of her stool and patting Kevin’s shoulder in sympathy. “No, thank you. You can walk me to the door, though, because I know Moreau’s too lazy to do it.” She shoots the remaining three a curt nod of acknowledgement before heading for the door, Kevin trailing behind her with the same surprised look in his eye.

As soon as they are out of earshot, Neil breaks. “What,” he starts, “was that?”

Jean schools his features into a blank canvas once more. “Yonah,” he replies as if it was obvious, “our captain.”

“Yes, but,” Neil protests, even though he has no idea what he’s protesting against. The necklace and the chocolates stand in the counter, untouched and unmoved by Andrew’s thoughtful staring. “That was… Odd.”

“Kevin can have other friends,” Jean replies, stone-cold, “as many as he pleases.”

“It’s not that,” Neil disagrees on the same hand, but doesn’t get to finish his point as Kevin slides into the kitchen once more, gathering the necklace carefully and pushing the chocolates in Andrew’s direction.

“You can have them,” he hums absentmindedly, folding the necklace inside the paper bag and placing it on the dinner table.

Andrew wordlessly grabs the box to himself, but watches Kevin’s every move as he resumes his breakfast. Neil can’t wash away the reluctance to admit Kevin had a new captain and a new team to care for; it lives and sparkles in him like the lit end of a firefly, the fire of jealousy nothing but a part of his anatomy. He doesn’t want to think about that, though, so he stares as Andrew shoves three chocolates in his mouth and Kevin tries to pretend four grapes and a mug of coffee with almond milk are enough food for breakfast.

Neil helps Kevin put out the breakfast table while Andrew lazily watches them do it, blinking away the remains of sleep. Jean leaves for his painting lessons a few minutes after ten, and then they are three again. It’s a foreign life Neil thinks he wants to get used to.

The thing is: each time Neil’s happy, he thinks it will last forever.

It, of course, never lasts forever. When has it ever?

This one particular happiness barely lasted an hour.

He wants to say it’s a silly reason to start an argument. He wants to say that now Kevin is just being antagonistic on purpose. He wants to say — _God_ , he wants to ask himself how he could imagine a world where they could live together without killing each other in the process, but Neil knows how: hope. Unchanging, fervorous, too-lofty-to-bend hope. Hope, which is as dangerous of a poison as it is healing as an antidote; hope, by which men have lived since the beginning of time; hope, the thing with the feathers; hope, the room which you know if you walked in, you would die there or be happy forever, a high risk with a high reward. Neil had lots of hope, but he also had lots of rage: if he couldn’t indulge in one, he would have to suffice with indulging on the other.

It happens like this:

Kevin, meaning to go for a jog on the Charleston shore, has one foot out of the door before he can even answer where he planned to go.

Andrew, physically unable to let go of his controlling tendencies, moves faster than Neil can even comprehend to block the exit, uttering a hard-sounding “Alone? No,” that had Kevin’s hands curling into fists where he hid them in his pockets.

Kevin, backing away as if hit, warning a low call of, “Andrew,” that Neil had only heard two or three time befores; neither of them with a good connotation.

Andrew, reaching for Kevin’s shoulder to push him back but stopping mid-way after Kevin firmly tells him a bone-chilling “No” that has Neil flinching from his spot at the couch. “No, Andrew,” he repeats himself shortly after. _No —_ to the touch, to the situation, to the love that so often sounds and feels like control when put under a certain light. “I’m not your problem anymore.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Andrew all but snarls, retreating his hand slowly so Kevin could see it in spite of his clear irritation. “You were always going to be my problem.”

“ _Andrew,_ ” Kevin repeats himself, his voice growing tight with discomfort Neil knows well enough — it’s the tone he has when he feels himself about to lash out, but does not want to do it. “I’ve told you before: we can’t be as we were before. I can’t—” He takes another step back. “You know you can’t boss me around like this anymore. You know I said I would only come back if you stopped trying to cut me down at the knees.”

Andrew’s jaw is set in stone, his mouth dormant and pressed into a thin, harsh line. He crosses his arms. “I will go with you, then.”

Kevin only blinks at him, round green eyes staring at Andrew like he couldn’t decide if he was to be trusted or not. Fickle and intense as their relationship was, that was what called Neil to motion — the deer-in-headlights look in Kevin’s eyes, his knees locked into place like he’s preparing to fight or flight.

“Kevin,” he warns, approaching the situation with the caution of a man approaching two howling beasts. “He’s just trying to take care of you.”

He doesn’t look back at Neil when he says it, eyes trained on Andrew, but Neil knows by the bitter curve of his mouth that it took everything in Kevin not to spit out some venom. “Don’t talk to me like that,” is what Kevin ends up saying, instead, the tight anger of his voice making Neil’s shoulders tense up in instinct.

“Like what?” Neil prompts, his tone spiking up in antagonism.

“Like I’m your pet,” Kevin replies, snapping his head in Neil’s direction. “I don’t like it. I don’t like _this,_ ” he takes several steps back, motioning between Andrew and Neil. “I’ve worked— I’ve worked _too_ hard for my freedom to have it taken from me. Again. Enough. Enough is enough.”

Andrew stays glued to the doorway. Neil takes a step forward. “You’re lashing out at people who have no nothing to do with your issues,” he points out, feeling his nails dig into his own palms painfully. Neil doesn’t know what he’s holding back from — punching Kevin or bringing him close; cradling his head to Neil’s chest; telling him he doesn’t have to fear.

“ _No,_ ” the fury in Kevin’s voice spirals into a bright blue flame Neil has never gotten from him before, but he knows Andrew has. It’s not just anger; it’s hurt, grief, spite, a grudge the size of Jupiter, and it’s cracked open — bare and honest, cruel without the intention to be. “No. If the two of you are under the need to tell a man what to do, you can turn around and do that to each other. Not to me. You don’t _own_ me. Neither of you. What even— What is this? I get hurt once and I lose all my autonomy, is that it?”

“You’re being so,” Neil stresses, trying to find his words, “you’re being so sensitive. For _nothing._ You _know_ we’re just trying to take care of you.”

Whatever the right thing to say was at that moment, _you’re being so sensitive_ was not it. Kevin’s face falls cold and stoic like a funeral, regal in its black grief, and the tight set of his jaw has Neil instinctively preparing for a physical fight he knew wouldn’t come. “Then get the fuck out of my house, Neil,” Kevin snarls, seemingly past trying to explain his point. “If you can’t respect the one thing I ask from you, then get the fuck out. Go back to Palmetto. I don’t need you here if you can’t find a way to care about me without hurting me in the process.”

Neil takes another step forward, hands itching to fist Kevin’s sweatshirt and bring him down, but Andrew stops in front of him before he can, giving Neil his back. It’s a show out of offering Neil sorely-earned vulnerability — with how he keeps his face pointed to Kevin and his hands buried in his pockets, Neil could do anything to him before he even had the chance to react. It’s the number one rule of fistfights to not give your back to anyone, and Andrew broke it; because he trusted Neil and because he wanted to protect Kevin. Neil felt his anger slowly deflate.

“ _Enough_ ,” Andrew ceases their argument, his tone final. Kevin stares at Neil — red-eyed like he was about to cry, or yell, or both — over Andrew’s shoulder, but doesn’t try to contest the abrupt end to their fight. “Enough. You will talk about this when Kevin gets back.” Pointedly, he steps away from the two of them to grab his coat from the hanger, his back never leaving Neil’s sight. “I will go with you. Yes or no, Kevin?”

Neil expects him to say no. Expects him to say _go fuck yourself, Andrew._ Expects him to storm off.

Instead, he takes a deep breath — long enough for his hands to stop shaking, long enough for Neil to mimic it from his spot behind Andrew — and utters a firm, “Yes,” that has something in Neil’s heart untightening in relief.

Kevin was angry, there was no point in trying to say that he wasn’t, but he chose company either way; chose to keep close either way. That meant that, though there was rage, there was also hope. Copious amounts of it — enough to settle Neil's anger.

Andrew follows when Kevin storms out of the apartment, but not without sending Neil a pointed look that meant _are you okay?_ and _don't worry_ and _he'll come around_ all in one bored flick of his gaze. Neil motions dismissively at him as an answer, _I'm okay_ and _I will regardless_ and _I hope so_ in just one movement. It's enough to have Andrew offering him a curt nod before closing the door behind himself.

Neil watches them leave through the balcony, Kevin's small figure miles faster than Andrew's even smaller one, the two of them nothing but moving dots from where Neil saw them. He is furious, but he has been furious everyday of his life; Neil is no foreigner to it. What surprises him is the underlying care for Kevin that still prickled at his heart even when Neil was _furious_ with him and his stubbornness — almost like Kevin was sand the shore couldn't wash away, love whose bloody taste Neil couldn't get rid of. Neil missed him in the very instant he walked out of the apartment; if only so they could fight, if only so they could argue, if only so Neil could miss a man that was only a few steps away.

The bare, naked truth is that Neil already knew he hated himself for his mouth, his tendency to blow up — he might as well also admit that he hated Kevin for his blindness, for his stubbornness, for the way in which he refused to believe Neil loved him, for his first instinct being shooting to kill when put in an uncomfortable situation. He might as well acknowledge that the only reason he hated Kevin so ardently was that he loved Kevin almost twice as much. He might as well confess that he wouldn't hold so much anger and so much love for Kevin if they weren't so alike.

Neil knows, deep in his core, that he would have reacted the same were he in Kevin's shoes — but so would have Kevin, if he were in Neil's shoes.

But that's what Kevin does to people, see: there is no one that makes Neil happier, and no one that makes Neil sadder, than he does. Neil couldn't have loved Kevin so fiercely if they weren't both a mirror and an opposite of each other; if Kevin wasn't such an insistent pull from home that felt more like a haunting than anything else.

Neil watches them go, and then watches the empty space they leave behind. He knows them like the back of his hand — knows, as certain as he knows that the sun will rise, that Kevin skips two steps when he’s jogging while impatient; that Andrew zones out during jogs; that they will take laps across the shore until Kevin’s temper crumbles or Andrew’s will to comply is cut short. They will get themselves and their own issues figured out, because they’ve fought too much and for too long before to let something as simple as this set off their sorely earned good relationship.

It is with great horror, then, that Neil realizes _he_ is the problem: _he_ is the one whose issues would go unresolved without any external interference. He is the one who would burn this all down and not bat an eye at it, because he is as used to losing people as he is to switching names, ages, accents, cities, countries, and he still doesn’t know how to fight for them when _he_ is the one trying to push them away. Neil doesn’t know how to fight the voice in his head that tells him to lash out when caged in a situation he doesn’t want to be in; doesn’t know how to tell himself _no_ when the urge to run away hits.

Perhaps he’s been excusing himself from this for too long, or maybe he’s been going positively insane ever since he watched Kevin’s apartment complex get smaller and smaller from the Maserati’s rear view mirror, just a month ago. Insane enough to do something crazy, like backing down from this stupid argument and apologizing. Insane enough to take Kevin’s hands in his own and beg him to tell Neil he’s still his, through and through, despite the distance. Insane enough to brush past the curtain of bias and realize that the venom Kevin offered resided on the opposite side of a coin Neil’s own brand of cruelty lived in.

Was he insane enough to grab Kevin by the scruff of his neck, like a kitten, and tell him, _I didn’t mean that, I didn’t mean any of it, I just didn’t know how to hurt you and at the moment I really did want to hurt you_? Was he insane enough to tell Kevin that panic made him a different, much worse person, one that Kevin might find impossible to tolerate, let alone love? Was Neil insane enough to apologize, to accept defeat, to drown out his pride, to admit that he was an awful, no good man? That he was stagnant in time, stuck in his 18 year-old body, refusing to grow a day past it? That he didn't know how to grow up, and that he didn't want the people around him to know either?

Maybe, maybe he was. He didn’t have time to ponder much about it with Jean Moreau curiously staring at him from the balcony door, his arms crossed and his sleeve stained with blue paint.

“What.” He asks — no, demands. Maybe Neil has been turning into nineteen years old Andrew instead of twenty years old Neil, growing back in time like a kid losing jackets.

Jean gives him an once over, unmoved by the rudeness. “Bumped into Kevin in the lobby. What did you do?”

“Fuck you for asking,” Neil snarls, not moving his gaze from where it sat on the empty street Kevin and Andrew were passing through just a few minutes ago. “Mind your business before you lose a tooth.”

“I don’t enjoy repeating myself.”

“Fuck you, Jean,” Neil repeats. “I already got an earful from Kevin, I don’t need another from you.”

Jean stays quiet for a blissful, blissful second, long enough for Neil to think he’d let it go, but it doesn’t last long. He doesn’t approach Neil on the balcony, though; he stays where he is. “Who lashed out first?” Jean asks, instead, “You or Kevin?”

 _Kevin,_ Neil wants to say, but it would be a lie — he had made it worse; had given him a reason to lash out. Kevin had said no, firm and explicitly, and Neil ignored it to set fire to the gasoline when even Andrew had already backed down. He was as much to blame as Kevin was. “I did,” he replies at last.

“Oh,” Jean hums, a distant sound that gets swallowed up by the sharp autumn breeze. “Oh, Neil Josten, why do you have to break what you love so much?”

“Shut up.”

“No.” Jean approaches him with three long strides, leaning his elbows against the parapet Neil was holding on to for dear life. For a moment, all he does is quietly stare, and Neil refuses to meet his gaze — refuses to meet the smugness in it, the look of a man who knew this would happen already; who had no faith in Neil, and was right to do so. It was as if Jean had already known of their fight, and was simply receiving the news a fear months later. “You’re pathetic.”

Neil clutches the parapet harder; his knuckles turning white. “Which part of fuck off don’t you understand?”

“You’re pathetic,” Jean repeats, his eyes trained to the neighborhood, so small and insignificant under their feet. “I have never met a man so self-destructive before, and I live with Kevin Day.”

“Stop,” Neil cuts the subject short, “Kevin and I are nothing alike.”

“No, you’re not,” he agrees easily, “Kevin is better.”

Neil doesn’t know how to answer that, so he doesn’t. It’s not like it’s recent news — Neil knew it from the day he stepped in Palmetto, and would take that belief to the grave. “But,” Jean continues, “that does not mean you two are not the same. Do you think I don’t know that Kevin can be a bitch when he wants to?”

Neil purses his lips. “I gave him a reason.”

“I’m sure you did,” again, Jean easily agrees, “as I’m sure Kevin was twice as ready to retaliate against you.” He taps against the parapet in thought, a rhythm Neil doesn’t recognize, then asks, “Do you know what got me my worst punishment at the Nest?”

 _I don’t want to know,_ Neil wants to say, _because if I do, I might not be able to push through this conversation._ He doesn’t say that, though — “What?”

To his surprise, a smile tugs at Jean’s lips; bitter and small, but a smile still. “I fought back,” Jean tells him, almost in a hum, “I punched Riko in the face. Repeatedly. It was easy, because he was so much smaller than me. I could have killed him,” — he considers his words for a second — “I _should_ have killed him. But that’s not the point. The point is: I knew what the consequences of that would be, and I did it anyways. Why?”

“Because you needed to,” Neil replies, still avoiding Jean’s gaze, “because it was worth it.”

“It was.” Jean nods. “I was— hurt beyond words for that, so much so that I regretted it, at the time. But now I see that that was what I was conditioned to do: I was a caged animal, and I lashed out at the first chance I had because it felt like freedom. That’s what caged animals do. That’s what _you_ do.”

Finally, Neil meets his eyes. “I’m not a caged animal.”

Jean quirks an eyebrow at him. “You don’t know how to live in society,” he states, “you don’t know how to be a real person. You’re still lashing out every time something goes out of your way. Who’s the coward now, I wonder?”

“You don’t know anything about me,” Neil spits out.

“You don’t know anything about yourself,” Jean replies, nonplussed. “Is it Kevin you’ve built your life around? Your boyfriend?” then, after a second: “Is it both?”

 _Is it both?_ sends shivers down his spine, a violent reminder of a wanting so ancient in Neil’s stomach that it becomes a part of his anatomy by proxy. When Neil doesn’t answer, Jean hums in understanding, “Both, then. It’s no surprise that Kevin rattles your nerves this much; you are no one and nothing without him. There is still something I don’t understand, though.” He peels his eyes away from Neil’s, gray irises the color of a London morning as they trace the cityline. “How do you love and hate someone so much, and at the same time?”

“It’s Kevin,” Neil answers, “you know how.”

Jean tips his head to the side in thought. “I know how,” he concedes. He taps the same melody against the parapet once more. “Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt, after all.” Red flares up in Neil’s chest, but Jean doesn’t loosen his metaphorical chokehold enough for him to bask in it. “Are you going to tell him?”

Neil allows his mouth to curl into a bitter line. It’s whatever, really — if Jean knows, it’s whatever. “No. He doesn’t want—” _me, he doesn’t want me,_ “anything from me.”

“I thought you knew how much Kevin hates it when people make decisions for him,” Jean tells him, face falling stoic.

“Which decision am I making for him?”

He briefly steals a look at Neil before saying, “You’re assuming to know what he wants.” Jean fidgets with the parapet the same way Andrew would in the need of a cigarette, and the similarity is as uncanny as it is, in some twisted spin of Neil’s mind, comforting. “You’re bad at being Kevin’s friend, Neil Josten. I hope you’re better at being his partner if he ever decides to waste his time with you.”

And with that, Jean unpeels himself from the parapet and leaves.

Neil taps his fingers against the ledge to the same rhythm Jean did, the melody coming to him as easy as it came to the man of the hour; the one that just left Neil’s secrets open and exposed in the air.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Jean Moreau is cruel and thoughtless.

So is Neil Josten.

He is caught wondering what does it say about them that Neil feels more comforted than confronted when Jean walks away, the impassive tone of his voice a metal bar so hard to bend that Neil accepts it wholeheartedly when it pierces through his chest, cracking him open and vulnerable without much thought to it. His secrets — his one lifeline, the one constant in more than a decade of lying, the only thing he could say that wasn’t Neil or Nathaniel but _himself,_ the man and not the name —, when has Neil given up on them? When has the prospect of being known, being read, stopped being the boogeyman under his bed?

There are better things to fear; better men than himself to be worried about.

Kevin, for one.

Andrew, for two.

Neil ponders, briefly, if he could have loved Andrew so much if he didn’t love Kevin as he did — and if he could have loved Kevin so much if he didn’t love Andrew as he did. Aren’t they the same thing, at the end of the day? So intertwined, so merged together, that if Andrew tripped on his feet, Kevin would take the fall?

And what fall would it be — he’d fall and take everything down with him, because Kevin doesn’t know moderation; doesn’t know how to feel anything he’s not drowning in. Neil has learned early that repression talks better about one’s desires than wanting ever will, but for once, he indulges in the questions his mind has been trying to avoid for all these years: would Kevin be as destructive as a lover as he is as a leader? Would he consume Neil’s world, would he be just as intense, just as harsh, just as deliciously ill-advised and addictive? Is Kevin’s heart as unbearable of a burden to carry as his words? Is his love too heavy, too sturdy, unliftable even with four hands?

It does not deter Neil any to think that it is. It’s just that his mother always told him to size up threats before you take them down.

Kevin who knows no shame,

who knows no bounds,

who doesn’t know how to not be the center of attention,

whose eyes are sea green,

whose skin is tanned to a delight,

whose lips are full and round,

whose neck is long and slender,

whose fault in all of this mess Neil couldn’t remember now.

What was he supposed to be angry about? Surely nothing worth being away from Kevin.

He remembers, though, — the heart always remembers — when Kevin takes one icy look at him and storms off into his bedroom the second he’s back from his jog, the curve of his lips so red from the running Neil barely had it in himself to glare back. Andrew, equally as flushed but not nearly as mad, only studies Neil for a long second before walking into the kitchen and fetching them both water bottles, nevermind that Neil hadn’t asked for one in the first place.

They sit quietly in the balcony, backs pressed to the wall, no Jean and no Kevin in sight. That is something they do a lot, Neil supposes: sit with each other and bask in their own individual miseries, even if they know the other is in the wrong. Neil doesn’t need Andrew to lecture him, though, and he knows Andrew won’t; neither were in any moral high ground that allowed them to judge down on the other’s actions.

Andrew bites at the bottle finish, and Neil watches the way it leaves a dent on his lips so he doesn’t have to watch the gray horizon he’s been staring at for the past twenty minutes. It takes Andrew perhaps just as much time to utter the simple, simple words, “He said no.”

Neil leans the back of his head against the wall. “He did.” Then, smaller, “I should have listened.”

“So should I,” Andrew replies, toneless. It’s the closest to regret he’ll ever get to, Neil thinks, but dismisses it as quickly as it came — Andrew knows regret intimately. He sees it everytime he looks back at his life. “He,” Andrew carefully puts out, “is not mad at me.”

“You listened to him,” Neil hums, unmoved, “it makes sense.”

Andrew stares quietly. “We will talk about him when we get back to Palmetto.”

He doesn’t offer any more context, but Neil can imagine what he’s talking about. _Because it’s the same reason,_ Andrew had said. Desire is often a mirror. “I know,” Neil answers, gently offering an arm for Andrew to lean against if he so desires.

After a curt moment of consideration, Andrew lets Neil hook an arm over his shoulders, the feeling of Andrew’s infinite body under his skin making every single thing in the room feel bigger than it is, and Neil, incredibly small. “Did I break your trust, too?” Neil wonders aloud. “I didn’t accept a no.”

Andrew weighs that in his head. “No,” he eventually concedes. “Don’t do it again.”

Neil, despite everything, feels something tug gently at the corner of his lips. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” He uses his free hand to gesture around vaguely, trying to conceive the inconceivable. “Being at odds with Kevin. How did you do it?”

“He gets cruel,” is what Andrew replies. Not really an answer to Neil’s question, if Neil were to be honest.

“So do you,” Neil reminds him out of habit. “So do I.”

Andrew turns his head to him slowly. “I am not shaming him for it,” he murmurs, the rough drag of his voice so familiar, so well loved. Andrew turns forward once more to confess, “It is worse because he does not mean to be cruel.” _He is right, most of the time,_ is what Andrew leaves unsaid. Neil wonders when he got so good at reading him.

“Yeah,” Neil agrees, not quite managing to get his voice as nonplussed as Andrew’s is, “yeah, it is. But,” he considers himself for a second before gently adding, “it is worse because it’s him, mostly.”

An Achilles’ heel, if Andrew and Neil ever had one.

Andrew doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t have to. He never has to.

They sit in silence for a lifetime before Andrew pats Neil’s knee once, twice. “Talk to him,” he says, not quite a request.

“I will,” Neil replies, not quite a promise.

It is a near thing, with the three of them. The planets don’t rebel themselves out of the solar system — more often than not, they get knocked out. One body goes out of orbit and the remaining follow; they don’t know any better. They are more attracted to each other than they are to a sin as mundane, as uninteresting and boring as safety.

Love, as good as what it’s for, does not win wars. Not undressed from hate, at least.

Neil does, in fact, talk to Kevin.

He doesn’t know why he ever thought it would be easy to just apologize. In his head, he does everything right.

But outside of it—

“Kevin, that’s enough,” he tells him, clutching the wheel of the Maserati as if it was a lifeline. It keeps him from doing something stupid, mostly — like reaching out and tucking away the stray lock of black hair glued to the side of Kevin’s face. “It’s cowardly to lash out at me for trying to apologize to you.”

Kevin, from the passenger seat, drenched in moonlight, presses his lips into a tight line. Very beautiful, but that’s not the point. “I don’t understand you,” he confesses, at last. This is the longest grocery store run of Neil’s life. They hadn’t even gotten out of the parking long yet. “I don’t understand anything about you. You—” Kevin huffs frustratedly, “you don’t like me.”

 _That’s a way to put it,_ Neil thinks. “I do.”

“No,” he corrects Neil. “You love me, but you don’t like me. There’s a difference.”

“I like you,” Neil insists, the words easy on the tongue. He liked Kevin so much it didn’t even occur to him that he loved Kevin until it hit him right in the face.

Kevin ignores it, averting his eyes to the window. There is nothing interesting there to see — just cars, charmingly unrecognizable, but still just cars — but he doesn’t seem to mind it so much as long as it’s not Neil. “Then why can’t we be friends, Neil?” he asks, his voice so distant Neil almost deems it a rhetorical question; a wonder made-aloud. “I don’t understand you. I don’t understand— _us_. When it’s good, it’s so good, but when it’s bad, it’s so bad.” Kevin’s shoulders fall. “I don’t like fighting with you,” he ultimately decides, “but I just can’t apologize. I can’t apologize like you did. I can’t apologize for defending my autonomy.”

“I understand,” Neil replies, forcing his eyes to meet the lamp post just in front of the Maserati to keep himself from compulsively staring at Kevin’s face. How ridiculous is their situation — looking everywhere but at each other, blowing air into the night to avoid blowing up their relationship, worn out like a party dress. These stupid feelings of his for Kevin will be the death star of their entire planet: something will choose to grow or rot from it, but everything else will be extintcted nonetheless. Tentatively, Neil asks, “Do you think we’re bad at being friends?”

“Yes,” Kevin immediately answers.

Neil files that out for later. “How would we be if we were good at it?” he prompts, “Like you and Andrew?”

Kevin does something that’s half a scoff and half a huff — it’s scornful regardless. “I don’t think I’m friends with the two of you,” Kevin admits, eventually. He looks small, at sudden. “I don’t know if we ever were. Neither of you know how to be friends with me.” He fidgets with the door handle for a second. “I don’t understand why.”

There is an edge to the voice — something charged, something that implies an _Am I the problem?_ that Neil absolutely hates. “It’s not your fault,” he murmurs, biting down on his own tongue. _You did this_ ; he is violently reminded. It’s not what Neil meant, of course, but he ultimately decides that his intentions failed him. “I think we’re just… Bad, in general.” Neil presses his lips together in thought. “But I won’t leave unless you tell me to. It’s not over until you tell me it is.”

At that, Kevin turns to him abruptly, blinking in surprise as if he hadn’t even considered the idea of a life without Neil in it. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he replies, almost stern. “I said get out of my house, not get out of my life.”

“Semantics.”

“Not semantics,” Kevin disagrees. “I don’t want you out of my life.”

“Kevin,” Neil finds himself almost pleading, “I don’t want to be bad to you.”

_Oh, Neil Josten, why do you have to break what you love so much?_

Why, really — isn’t that the golden question?

Kevin stares at him for a moment, silently studying Neil’s every feature, before announcing, “I know you.” He stares out at the window once more. “You’re mean. You’re cruel and aggressive and thoughtless, and you’re an asshole. You blow things out of proportion. You don’t know how to back down. You’re—” Kevin leans back against his seat. “You’re just like me. And I’m just like you. And we are bad to each other.”

He waits for Neil’s agreement to continue, “But that’s not all I know about you. I know that you’re mean only when you’re nervous. I know that you’re cruel and thoughtless and an asshole because you don’t know how else to react when something doesn’t go your way. I know that you don’t back down because you think it proves your point.” Kevin pauses for an excruciatingly long moment before resuming his speech, “You’re infuriating, sure, but I don’t want you out of my life. I never do. It’s hard enough with you in it, I don’t want to imagine what it’s like without.”

“I’m sorry,” Neil repeats himself, tightening his hands around the wheel impossibly harder. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry,” Kevin agrees easily. “I know that.”

“I don’t know how to make it better.”

“Don’t,” he replies. “You’re an asshole. Don’t be a martyr now.”

Neil blinks at him in surprise. “Nobody likes a martyr.”

Kevin shrugs. “Some people do,” he answers, raking a hand through his hair. “We’re fine, Neil.” Kevin finally relaxes against his seat, arms crossed to his chest. “Get the car going.”

And Neil does. He doesn’t know any better.

They _are_ fine — Neil almost runs the red light once or twice, too busy staring at Kevin, and they manage to get the groceries back to the apartment with little to no clashing from both parts. It’s a system that works until it doesn’t, and Neil is sure it will malfunction again soon enough, but for today, Kevin wants him in his life. For today, Neil has no reason not to stay. For today, they’re not ghosts of the past, but figments of the future.

They cook in silence, they eat in silence, they watch TV in silence, they live in silence. They weren’t quiet men, not quite, but sometimes Neil prefers to be quiet when all he can think to say is _loveyouhateyoudontleavemeplease._ Silence can be worth it, he thinks, if it’s what it takes to keep the man you love.

But he does wonder for how long this scene will play — for how long he’ll be able to pretend whatever he feels for Kevin isn’t eating away at them both. Maybe if Neil was like Andrew, good and steady and a pillar for Kevin to lean on, they’d get along better; they’d warm up to each other more; but Neil knows that’ll never happen. His love was an unwanted bad omen at best and downright harmful at worst. There is no peace Neil can give Kevin.

But there is love. Copious amounts of it.

The rest of their short-lived stay goes fairly smoother after that, with the three of them glued to each other like a pack of skittish stray cats, shining over without burning. When it’s good, it’s so good — they ground Neil, make him feel real, complete, make him a person worth loving and knowing. Each time he falls between Kevin and Andrew he is violently reminded of how much Mary Hatford would hate this — every aspect of this — and it makes him happy. It makes him happy. It means Neil is someone else now; someone not even her ghost can wrap its hands around.

It also makes Andrew someone else, the three of them. Neil distantly sees it, as if through thick fog, when Andrew’s hands become softer, gentler, protecting without claiming. It wasn’t just that Neil wanted Kevin: it was that he made them better. They didn’t need him to work, surely, but Kevin made them better players, better people, better lovers — he cut through their million of bad habits and refused to be met in tough love that didn’t fit him; he was a force of nature that was constantly tearing them apart, but only so that the light could get in. Kevin didn’t let them get comfortable, but there was comfort in the way his expectations were always brighter for them. It showed Neil that Kevin believed they were better and bigger than their demons, and would not set the bar lower because he knew of the good they were capable of.

When they leave, it’s with the promise that Kevin would continue to eat well, and Andrew very sternly made sure to point out that this was one of the promises he couldn’t break. When they arrive at Palmetto, it’s a dead-empty absence that stares back at them, the vacant life of what once was Kevin Day’s space poking at their eyes and laughing at them when they water.

 _Three hours away,_ Neil tells the burning pile of longing in his chest when it asks him, desperate, where Kevin was.

 _What's one long drive?_ the pile answers back.

Neil drowns its voice out.

It takes them another week to have the so-promised conversation about Kevin, but when Neil finds himself on the roof, legs dangling down the ledge, he feels like maybe it was meant to happen years ago, and they’ve been wasting time ever since. Like an image passing by, the last three years of his life flood the gates of his memory — every charged fight, every awkward apology, every clumsy misstep and exhilarating conclusion. This was what it meant to be free: to be able to choose what destroys you. Love was a good reason to worry yourself into an early grave.

It works like this: it’s Andrew who speaks up first, but it’s Neil who has the heart muscle to address the elephant in the room. It’s a system that works until it doesn’t.

Andrew huffs out cold autumn air into the breeze, leaning back on his hands. Neil likes his hands a lot — they’re small and warm; calloused by the Exy and the fights; perfect for the burdens they so easily carry. “When you look at Kevin,” he finally asks, “what do you see?”

 _A muse,_ Neil wants to answer, but he doesn’t think that is the answer Andrew is looking for. “I see my future,” Neil replies, an admission so long overdue he feels the ground shift under him, the ancientness of the world coming up to meet the rough skin of his palms. “I see the man I want,” he misses a step, “to be.”

Andrew hums almost in understanding, and Neil is caught wondering if he does, indeed, understand. “And how bad do you want it?”

“Too much,” Neil confesses. He turns his eyes to the moon. “Andrew, is it bad if I say it’s too much?”

His answer is immediate. “No,” Andrew replies, with the tone of a man whose word is final. “He gave you a future.”

“And you kept me alive so I could fulfill it.” _And there is no way I will ever be able to repay either of you,_ Neil doesn’t say, though he fears Andrew knows. It’s a crushing weight, more often than not, to know that there is so little he can do to ever be worthy of what they did for him; all the danger they put themselves into.

Andrew motions dismissively, too nonchalant for such a topic. “This is not about me,” Andrew tells him, “this is about Kevin, and how you can still feel his claws in your gut. He gave you a reason to hope, and hope is an incurable haemophilia. You bleed and you bleed and you bleed. You’ll never be able to get rid of him.” He turns his face to the sky as if praying for patience; as if Neil was a particularly slow child who needed things spelled out for him. He was, and he did. “You are not the only one who feels that way.”

And it’s such a small, barely-there confession that Neil almost misses it. Suddenly, the air is punched out of his lungs. “No, I’m not,” Neil all but gasps out, if only to keep himself from saying something else; something infinitely more dangerous. “We both do.”

Andrew looks at him, _really_ looks at him, and says: “And this changes nothing between us.”

A question more than it’s a statement. Neil nods earnestly. “No, it doesn’t.”

He is silent for a while, and Neil realizes it’s the only opening Andrew will ever give him when it comes to this subject — the silence that prods him to ask his own questions, to make of this what he wills. “Since when?” Neil asks, then, because it feels like the easiest of the things he wonders about in the topic of Kevin and Andrew.

“Since before we struck the deal.” Andrew presses his lips into a tight line. “Never at the same time as you.”

Neil blinks at him in surprise. “You thought it had gone away.” When Andrew doesn’t answer, Neil knows he’s right. “Why did you never act on it?”

“He wouldn’t know how to tell me no.” Andrew scrunches up his nose in something akin to distaste, but not quite. “He would have thought it was part of our deal. A bargaining chip for protection. Or worse,” — he flinches, so small it’s almost unperceivable — “that he had to do it or else.”

Neil doesn’t protest against it; he knows it’s true. “And now?”

“Kevin is still bad at telling me no.”

That’s true, too — even if his _nos_ are firm, they are still, to a degree, the rejection of a man who has no hope to be actually heard. _I don’t think I’m friends with the two of you,_ Kevin had said. Neil doesn’t want to know what he thought they were. “You don’t really give him much of a reason to.”

Andrew scoffs. “The bar is low enough for that to not be comforting.”

“It’s different now,” Neil tells him, “he doesn’t owe you anything. You can’t do anything to him if he tells you no.”

At that, Andrew doesn’t answer, and Neil knows that he knows; that Andrew has been over this in his head a thousand times before. He wouldn’t have brought this topic up at all if he thought Kevin was entirely off limits.

“What was it about him?” he finally, _finally_ asks. Something in Neil’s stomach curls up in anticipation: he has no idea what could have been about Kevin that got Andrew to look at him twice, but he has plenty of guesses to share. Was it his face, his neck, his arms, his hands — was it his wit, his viciousness, his power? Did Andrew also feel hypnotized by his cupid’s bow, his sharp eyes, his long legs? Neil wants to know so badly he fears it makes him look stupid.

Andrew eyes his excitement suspiciously, but evades the question by replying, “We had a fire alarm drill, once.” He scrubs his eye with his right hand, buying himself time, and Neil feels it in his entire body when his mind says _this is going to be good._ “They did not tell us it was a drill. Kevin slept through the fire alarm, and I was half-asleep. I did not realize he wasn’t with us until they were evacuating Fox Tower.” Andrew pauses for a moment, as if the memory still brought him some leftover guilt. Knowing him, it probably does. “It felt like flying in a plane. I could not sleep for the rest of the night. It was a drill, but it could have been a real fire.”

“You were scared,” Neil points out quietly. “You couldn’t stand the thought of losing him.”

He ignores Neil’s comment to mutter, “He cared about everything so much.”

It’s so unexpected Neil can’t help but think it was previsible. Andrew never, ever gives him what Neil expects him to give — of course it would have been Kevin’s undying passion and stubborn drive that got Andrew to pay attention to him, want him.

In a way, Neil understands it. Kevin was arrogant, a sturdy wall of obsession, perhaps even ruthless, but he did care — he let no one shame him into doing otherwise, and he criticized them as harshly as he did because he thought the Palmetto State Foxes could and should be better.

Wanting wasn’t enough to shape them into a good team, but by the Lord hadn’t Kevin tried to make it enough.

“And you cared about nothing,” Neil fills in the blanks by himself, forging the unbreakable image of Kevin and Andrew before Neil even knew them. “You wanted to be more like him.”

When Andrew doesn’t answer, Neil continues, “His left hand. He always let you take care of it, too. He trusted you like that. Kevin— Kevin never doubted your ability to be gentle.”

“He was naive,” Andrew grinds his teeth, “and stupid.”

Neil’s response is so automatic he couldn’t have taken it back if he wanted to. “And you loved him for it.”

Andrew doesn’t freeze, but it’s a near thing — his entire body stills, a common reaction when he’s confronted with the truth. Neil thought it was almost comic, how Andrew thought love wouldn’t find him if he simply looked the other way, but he was in no position to find it funny; not when he was just the same. They had the same sins to repent for, which is why they couldn’t let up from each other: no one else would understand.

Kevin and Andrew make sense, Neil quietly muses. Andrew was the first person to pick Kevin from the crowd by the scruff of his neck, like a kitten, and tell him he was worth taking care of; worth protecting and claiming. He put Kevin on the highest of pedestals and gave him the safety to keep going. That was no small gesture — Andrew loved him so much he rewired Kevin’s entire life and wrote over every heavy hand and sharp knife there ever was. Neil got so much joy from the thought he found himself unable to talk about it.

So, really, what does Neil see when he looks at Kevin?

He sees his muse, his angriest, most inevitable, longest-lasting muse. He sees the light at the end of the tunnel; the reason to peel himself out of bed when nothing else exists; the first person who told him yes when he was so used to being told no. Neil has never confessed his feelings for someone before, what with Andrew’s allergy to the full spectrum of human emotion, but he thought that starting with Kevin might not be that bad of an idea.

He thinks, _I like this._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally they sorted their shit out lmao......... this marks the end of neil's pov! next three chapters will all be from andrew's point of view, and with this new development of their relationship.......... let's get it nerds! we are nearing a breakthrough  
> also, totally unrelated, but i just realized that this is going to be the longest kandreil fic to date once i finish posting the updates IEJGOSIEGKROGKR so we have that going on for us right now. have some patience with me because i mean it when i say the chapters are Long  
> dayurno on tumblr for questions and snippets!!! have a good day and i'll see you on november 15th :)


	4. line without a hook

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you thought jean hated neil you havent seen how much he hates andrew yet
> 
> tw for discussions of past sexual assault, baltimore choking incident, canon compliant abuse

Andrew Minyard remembers everything. And because he remembers everything, his core memories — the ones that makeshift the man inside of him, the ones which he’ll never be forsaken from — are a rough and tumble mess of scrambled moments and brief sensations he couldn’t stop thinking about with a gun to his forehead.

Some memories are easy:

the feeling of his hair under his palms, when the big men above cut it and shipped him off to Juvie. Short; shaved; lighter than Andrew ever remembers it being.

the sound of Nicky’s cheap cutlery smashing against the ground; loud like a scream.

the sight of Aaron’s bruised knees — not Tilda’s doing; his own. Skateboards can be as rough as maddening mother dearest, sometimes.

the smell of Neil’s shampoo: insistent strawberries and peaches, pushing against his nose. The first and last time Neil used it, or maybe Andrew just got used to the scent.

the taste of scalding hot cocoa dragging down his throat, Betsy’s sharp tongue pulling the carpet under him and taking any certainty away with her.

Touch, hearing, sight, smell, taste — these are all things Andrew knows. These are all feelings he can make sense out of; memories he doesn’t have to work too hard to understand or pinpoint. Their simplicity forces their smallness, thereby making them easy to carry within: charmingly enough, they don’t take up space. They’re harmonic, part of a system, and Andrew enjoys systems.

But the thing about smallness is that it ever so rarely isn’t accompanied by its twin shadow, grandeur. From the Old French, _grandur_ ; from the Latin, _grandis_ — he who is grand, magnificent, majestic. Andrew had learned from a very early age that _big_ is often undressed from the meaning of _good_ : not all that is grand is noteworthily virtuous. The worst of men are those who are too big to fight against; the worst of memories are those which are too large to suppress.

Point in case:

Kevin’s red and blue eyes, his voice a broken whisper, pleading “If you love me, Andrew, let me _go_ ” in razor-sharp, steel-stained grief. The undoing of Andrew’s harshness; his undying guilt; his maxima culpa.

Neil’s purple bruises and pink cuts; the grotesque machinery of torture hidden over scraps of black plastic. A mighty fall from his fine-looking high horse, if Andrew has ever seen one.

Nicky’s green hematomas, the doing of four men Andrew never saw the end of, crawling all over the dark, otherwise unstained skin like leeches.

Renee’s hollowed out stare, miles and miles away. Unsweetened coffee-colored brown eyes losing life.

Aaron’s black and bitter lips; an angry snarl curling out of his mouth at Tilda’s funeral.

Blood-ridden yellow hair, falling over his eyes in Luther Hemmick’s spare bedroom.

Riko Moriyama’s violet fingernails, tucked into a coffin.

Cass Spear and her orange sweater.

Crisscrossed crimson cuts.

Every memory comes back to Andrew’s religious guilt — not the God-fearing kind, but guilt of which is so large it becomes a religion on its own — and its all-knowing, all-consuming apparatus. It is not a religion the man in the sky would approve of, but then again, if He wanted to be believed in so badly, He shouldn’t have begged so much for it. Andrew is more often than not driven away from all that he is asked to do, see; he’d sooner make a religion of his own than even for a second believe in anyone else’s.

Andrew Minyard, unsurprisingly, was a man of tragically few beliefs. This could narrowly mean, of course, that there is only so much sense his attraction to the faithful and believing Kevin Day can have.

There was once a time where Andrew was sure he’d die in Kevin’s arms — his guess for a reason was that forcing Riko’s hand one too many times would lend him a nice, cold spot somewhere in a Christian cemetery of Nicky’s choice, but he ultimately decided it didn’t matter why as long as he knew it would happen sooner or later —, and like most things surrounding their relationship, it would have been tragically comic, or perhaps comically tragic.

Andrew would laugh, of course: there is no version of this story where he cries, because death was such an intimate friend he had no reason to greet it with tears. _It’s funny,_ he’d tell Kevin, who would be sobbing; who would be wailing; who would be grasping at Andrew’s body like he never had the chance to map it out. Andrew wouldn’t play along with it — he’d never let Kevin bathe in his own misery for long enough that he couldn’t be withdrawn from it —, but he’d let Kevin card a hand through his hair, bury his nose in his forehead, wipe the tears and snot on his shirt. In death, Andrew once though, in death I deserve tenderness. In death, and only in death, I deserve it.

The scene didn’t play, of course — when does the world respect Andrew’s wishes and expectations? — but it could have, in an alternate reality. Much has changed since then, and the idea of such a death is unsightly now, though maybe not the tender part; Andrew thinks it can stay if it doesn’t turn to him with a vengeance in the near future. He thinks Kevin can card his hand through his hair if Andrew ever has the guts to stomach it.

So he’s been learning. Learning to be cared for, that is — Betsy tells him it might feel like returning to childhood; like revisiting the scene of the crime; like being so old you become young again. Either way, time does not loop back upon itself, and Andrew knows nothing but how to move forward, though now a Kevin-less man for the first time in years. It tastes like a fist to the mouth, a knife to the stomach, but Andrew manages. He manages.

And part of managing is, well—

“Aaron,” Betsy says, the name so familiar on her mouth after years of sitting side by side in her office and hammering every stitch open, every grudge free. “That is a big improvement for you.”

Aaron, from the opposite end of her couch, huffs. “It’s kinda depressing that me not wishing Andrew harm is an improvement for you, but I suppose that’s your job.”

Ah, yes. Managing. Is there anything as boringly bureaucratic as getting better, Andrew wonders?

“It’s not that you don’t wish Andrew harm,” Betsy kindly explains, her glasses crooked enough to make Andrew want to reach out and knock them back into place. She’d let him — Betsy never flinches away from Andrew, and he supposes it’s what people who are not scarred for life do. An interesting concept. “It’s that you can admit you wish him well. Two years ago, you could not have said that.”

“If admitting is the case,” Aaron starts, abruptly turning to Andrew. There is only one person who finds the entire prospect of healing more boring than Andrew does, and it’s Aaron — if it were for him, they would have solved all of this out with a fistfight, years ago. “Brother dearest, I hope you are never dominated, and I hope you never feel the need to dominate. I hope you are never a victim, but I hope you never have power over other people again.”

It’s backhanded at best and meaningful at worst. Andrew lets most of the things Aaron says slide from one ear to another, because he’d spend his entire life trying to figure them out otherwise.

Unfortunately, Betsy doesn’t share the feeling. “What do you mean by that, Aaron?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Aaron wonders aloud, letting himself fall back into the cushion with lifeless limbs. It is not obvious — nothing about Aaron is —, but it’s what he says when he has no intention to explain himself. If Andrew knows him well, his next sentence will be a subject change. “I don’t want to talk about this, Doctor. I find that talking about Andrew is entirely too boring.”

Betsy quirks an eyebrow in his direction, but there is a knowing smile tugging at the corner of her lips. It is a good day, today — a good session, too. “Is that so? Then what do you suggest we should talk about for the next,” she checks her wrist watch, “fifteen minutes?”

Aaron perks up like a hound smelling blood at the prospect of having a choice of subject. “Well,” he hums, too purposeful for it to be any good, “Doctor, I think it is time we talk about Andrew’s three-day romantic getaway to Charleston, isn’t it?”

Andrew purses his lips, but doesn’t interject. Betsy sends him a curious glance over her round glasses. She hasn’t heard about it yet — Andrew did not know how to bring it up, so he, logically, didn’t. “If he wants to,” she limits herself to replying, gracefully maneuvering herself around Aaron’s gossiping tendencies. He picked it up from Nicky, Andrew thinks. “Did you and Neil have fun, Andrew?”

“Oh, Doctor, haven’t you heard?” Aaron muses, amusement so clear on his tone that Andrew finds it hard to hold the urge to punch him anywhere he can get his hands on. “They stayed at Kevin’s, see.”

“Yes,” Andrew replies, toneless, “because Kevin was hospitalized.”

Betsy’s eyebrows furrow gently at the new piece of information, but all Aaron does is quietly snicker. He finds it, in some twisted way of his, incredibly entertaining to fool Betsy — Andrew thinks it makes Aaron feel smart. “Is he okay?” Betsy delicately asks, tapping her pen against her notepad. If she remembers anything from Andrew’s few joint sessions with Kevin, she must smell Andrew’s mixed feelings all across the room.

An odd woman, Betsy Dobson was; Andrew thought she would have made a lovely serial killer in another life. “Yes,” he answers, “it was a setback in his recovery for an eating disorder.”

“It must have taken a toll on the two of you, surely,” Betsy eyes them both with polite preoccupation; an act neither buy. “How did that make you feel?”

Aaron is the first to answer, “Katelyn knows a thing or two about eating disorders, so I told him what she said. She was happy to help.”

Betsy nods appreciatively, “How sweet. Did Kevin take it well?”

“He said we are not real doctors and therefore are not qualified to give him any medical advice,” Aaron hums back to her, “which, as far as he goes, is taking it well.”

“I’m glad, then,” she offers him a small, proud smile Aaron makes a point out of ignoring, turning to Andrew instead. Bitter are the wars between brothers, aren’t they? “You seem to be very interested in Andrew’s point of view regarding this. May I ask why?”

Aaron leans the back of his head against the wall. “I have a question.”

Andrew fights the urge to grind his teeth; Betsy berates him for it every time. “Yes?” he drags out of his mouth.

“When, exactly," Aaron pronounces his words carefully, as if they burned his mouth, "did you and Kevin break up?" Then, a second later: "And was it because of Josten?"

There are very few things that manage to make Andrew feel caught off guard — very, very few. Aaron's each and every assumption about his personal life always manages to be one of them. "What,” Andrew slowly asks, “are you talking about?”

Aaron squints at him suspiciously. “Don’t play dumb.”

“Brother mine,” he replies, “I could not be. What are you talking about?”

“You’re telling me you and Kevin had nothing going on during freshman year,” Aaron utters with pristine caution, “you are telling me that.”

Andrew blinks at him. “Yes, I am.”

“I don’t know if it’s more pathetic to think that you’re lying or to think that you’re telling the truth,” he hums, bringing his palms to rest against his own nape, elbows up and lazy. Betsy lets him get away with bad posture more — they came to find out that Aaron doesn’t do well with being berated by older female figures. “Brother dearest, it can’t be that you spent a year with him glued to your side and you didn’t hit even once.”

Andrew doesn't dignify that with an answer — can't, won't —, but he does offer Aaron a quick once over. "This is what you thought happened," he prompts, "this entire time?"

"What else was I supposed to think?" Aaron asks, the immovable object to Andrew's unstoppable force. "Your fallout with Kevin was more coupl-y than anything you did with Josten for the past two years."

"You thought Kevin was jealous," Andrew points out in lethargic disbelief.

Aaron shakes his head. "No, as I said, I thought Kevin was rightfully angry at you for being an asshole," he explains, "but I did think jealousy had something to do with it, yes."

Betsy, who had been curiously watching the pair of them as if they were a particularly interesting tennis match, taps her pen against her notepad a bit quicker now. “And how did that make you feel? When you thought Andrew and Kevin were a thing?”

Andrew fights the urge to scrunch up his nose in distaste at the way Betsy says it, the term _were_ burning holes into his chest. Aaron shrugs, “I thought Andrew would, in one way or another, break Kevin to irreparable damage. I told him that, already. It was a trainwreck waiting to happen.” He scratches his nape absentmindedly, considering his next words. “I suppose I was right, in a way. It just wasn’t irreparable.”

That wasn’t news for Andrew. He was very aware of his own faults, and thus did not need Aaron to point them out for him. When he tells him just as much, Aaron scoffs nonchalantly, saying, “You’re one to talk.”

And, yes, Andrew is one to talk.

Perhaps he wouldn’t have held onto Kevin so tightly if he weren’t so aware of how much people expected Andrew to fail him — perhaps the feeling still lingers, blooms and spreads like strawberries even now, years away from the mess that they were and the consequences it caused. Kevin is too easy to lose: if he had his way, he’d withdraw into his own chest and never come back, pulled towards himself irrevocably, irreversibly, with Herculean strength. By the sheer course of destiny, Kevin always returns to himself, and in that sense, he could never be anyone’s. Not even Andrew’s.

Not that it deters Andrew any, of course; as long as Kevin consents to it, he’ll try to pull him back towards them, stubborn like the tidal machinery of the sea. He’ll do the impossible, if it kills him in the end, because Andrew promised he would. Because he desperately needs Kevin to know that he is a man of his word.

So when the session ends and Andrew does not follow Aaron back into practice when he drops his brother off, he percolates on Aaron’s words for a brief, suspended moment in time, where nothing is real and nothing can hurt him as long as he doesn’t leave the driver seat. _I thought Andrew would, in one way or another, break Kevin to irreparable damage,_ Aaron said, _I suppose I was right, in a way._ He was right, in a way. Andrew’s debt kept growing the more his guilt did; it was surprising how it hadn’t grinded him into a fine, fine power yet, for Andrew knew it had such power and more.

 _Went to Charleston,_ Andrew types out to Neil single-handedly, turning the car on with the other. _Moreau and I will talk. Tell Nicky._

He doesn’t leave the Foxhole Court’s parking lot without Neil’s confirmation — a curt text in the shape of an _Okay_ that had Andrew briefly huffing at it —, but it doesn’t take long to come. The amount of gasoline he spends driving to and from Charleston is perhaps the biggest of his expenses now, but Neil has it covered with all the blood money he’s desperately trying to blow out, so Andrew doesn’t let it be a problem. Whatever is going on between him, Neil and Kevin is at the top of his priorities list; outshining almost everything else, money included. Practice included. Jean Moreau and his endless judgement included.

It takes him considerably less than three hours to reach Kevin’s apartment complex, what with the inexistent traffic and the fact that it’s four in the afternoon on a Wednesday, but it takes him ten to fifteen minutes to make the call, simply because he does not know — or does, but does not want to know — what he wants from Jean. Andrew doesn’t care for his approval, neither does he think he needs it to get with Kevin, yet a part of him, small and insistent and impossible to ignore, needs to know that he has it; needs to know that, when he takes that leap, he won’t be breaking anyone to irreparable damage. He needs, needs, needs — a new deal. Something to lean back against. The safety of knowing that he won’t be able to get away with ruining everything for Kevin once again.

It’s a near-game of crushing guilt and tipping scales, for Andrew and Kevin: they would not have stuck together for so long without the ancient stubborness of them, the one that keeps their rise-and-fall game a fair fight.

“Moreau,” he cuts straight to the point as soon as his call is picked up, “you have five minutes to meet me in front of your apartment, or I will go upstairs and drag you myself. Tick tock.”

There is a short silence from Jean’s side of the line before a scornful snort is heard. “I’m supposing you need a new punching bag now that Kevin graduated.”

And Andrew _knows,_ he _knows_ Jean is only saying that to mess with him, to make Andrew regret the fact that he came, to send him away — he _knows_ that, and still, it works. Still, like fire to a match, Andrew has to grip the wheel of the Maserati a little bit harder to keep himself from throwing his phone out of the window. “I,” he starts, as monotone as he could, “will not hurt you.”

“Now I am comforted,” Jean hums, so vicious Andrew could poison himself with it if he cared enough to. He didn’t, of course, but it was entertaining to see that Jean still tried. “What do you want?”

“We will talk,” Andrew tells him, watching his knuckles turn corpse-white. “Tell Kevin if you want. I don’t care. I said I will not hurt you, and I keep my promises.”

The following silence tells Andrew that Jean does not believe him, but it doesn’t matter — Jean Moreau fears nothing and no one anymore, and Andrew knows he’ll come, if only to fight, if only to spit on Andrew’s face and tell him he is subhuman; unworthy; every inch an unwanted menace. If only to send Andrew away with insurmountable anger and a set jaw.

Jean ends the call, and all Andrew has to do is wait.

It takes him a few minutes, but when he comes, Jean slides into the passenger seat with crossed arms, annoyingly folded into himself due to the incompatibility between the small space Neil usually needs and Jean's unreasonably long legs. He glares at the side of Andrew’s face as if he had never seen something as despicable before, and the feeling is well reciprocated, though all Andrew does is stare back nonchalantly.

In the end, it’s Jean who speaks up first, pointing out the obvious: “This is about Kevin,” he utters, refusing to back down from his glare. Andrew doesn't agree, but it's obvious that it is; they have nothing else to talk about. “I will only answer your questions if you answer mine. You can pull out your knives all you want, but there will be no coming down from it.”

What he means by that is that Kevin will know, and this time he won’t have it in himself to forgive Andrew. This time, they’ll be through; for good.

Andrew knows.

“How can you be friends with him knowing he abandoned you in the Nest?” he asks instead of promising anything. It’s not the reason he came all the way here for, but he needs to buy himself time; to tip the scales; to make Jean know, for all of his venom and wit, that Andrew is not the only one who has the capability to turn against Kevin with a vengeance.

Not a single muscle in Jean’s face twitches, still and unimpressed at the face of his own horrors. He must have asked himself the same question a thousand times before, Andrew distantly considers. “I cannot blame him for choosing between two equally awful options. He knew leaving would get him killed, and he knew staying would get him killed,” is what Jean ultimately replies, his words careful and almost well-trained; a mantra of sorts.

Andrew studies him ever so briefly: all six foot of him, powerful and mighty in all of his broken fashion. Jean built himself from the shell of the man he used to be in the Nest, because he did not have the choice not to — because he could not belong to the Moriyamas anymore, dead or alive. It was almost admirable. “Would you have left like he did, were you in his position?”

Jean offered him a hollow laugh; a sound that was neither pretty or pleasant. They were two in their resigned bitterness, at last — two sides of the same coin that would never merge, but mirrored each other perfectly. Andrew can’t help but think Kevin has a type. “There is no use thinking about that, because it would never be me in his position,” he hums. "Kevin wanted to taste freedom before he died; I would never even get close to that.”

He talked about it like it was a simple fact of life; an incontestable truth. Andrew recognized it as well as he recognized it in himself when Jean’s voice gave away his thoughts: _people like me do not climb anywhere higher than the rock bottom._

Jean's fearlessness was not Neil's fickle bravado; it was a stealthy, broad thing that was born out of the belief that if Jean went through all that he did, then no man in the world would be able to make him cower; then no man in the world would be worthy of it. Even now, his concern isn't Andrew putting his hands on him — it's Kevin finding out, and the consequences it would bring to his already poor mental state. Jean is not afraid, never is and never will be; the only difference between him and Andrew is that Jean resorted to love to feel something, while Andrew resorted to anger.

Andrew purses his lips as he says, “Ask me.”

“How can you hate Kevin so much after everything he's done for you?”

It’s so quick Andrew wonders how many times Jean had asked himself that before, and the conclusion he comes to leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

It’s also what he expected to be asked, and yet, and yet — “I don’t hate him,” Andrew tells him through gritted teeth.

“You raised a hand to him,” Jean spits out; with disgust, with anger; as if Andrew's palms were never worthy of Kevin's skin and the damage they did to it. Andrew’s rage burns like a wildfire, because he _knows_ and he _agrees_. “I was furious at him for forgiving you. He shouldn't have.”

Reluctantly, Andrew replies, “I did not mean to hurt Kevin. And I have made up for it.”

Jean quirks an eyebrow in his direction. “I will tell you the same thing I've told Neil: I am not impressed.”

Andrew bites down on the _I don't care_ scratching at the walls of his throat, because Jean's opinion — as unwanted, as poisonous and harsh as it is — matters. He knows Kevin the best out of everyone in his life, and if Andrew really is bad to him and his recovery, there is no mercy he could plead for Jean to not say it loud and clear. Andrew knows he _needs_ this: to solve the mess he made, to plead his case, to take this out of the way before it ruins what hasn’t even started yet.

He sucks it up. Andrew is considering what to say next when Jean beats him to it by announcing, slow but never any less vicious, “It does not matter if Kevin comprehends or accepts it — I have seen him settle for scraps for too long to allow him to do it again. If you love him, you do not love him in a way he would enjoy. If you care, you don't care enough.”

And the thing is — Andrew can't, won't, shouldn't say he cares more than he can understand; more than he thought he did; so much more than he meant to care. The words are trapped inside his throat, begging to burst, but he doesn't say them.

Instead, he offers something he is good at offering: a deal.

“If I ever hurt Kevin again,” he declares loud and clear, each word infinite, “you are allowed to take him away from me. Forever. I will not make a fuss about it — it will be out of my own doing. You have my word.”

That seems to get Jean startled enough to fall silent, gray eyes pushing through Andrew like he was just an understudy. Finally, Jean murmurs, “It will break his heart to see you give up on him without a fight.”

Andrew _knows_ that, but there is nothing else he can offer. “Then what do you want?”

“An answer,” Jean easily replies, as if it had been on his tongue all along.

“Ask, then.”

Jean doesn’t pull away from his stare. It’s frankly unnerving, but Andrew has been under more scrutinizing gazes before. “Kevin got hurt because of you and your lot many times before, but would _you_ shed blood for him?” Jean asks, at last, “Not someone else's, but blood of your own.” He pauses. “Would you do what I did every night, for more than a decade? Because if you would not, Andrew, then you are to stay away from him. He’s suffered enough because of men like you.”

Andrew thinks: _that is a fucked up measurement for love._

Then he thinks: _but_ _who am I to say that?_

“I would,” Andrew retaliates, “I would do it.”

Jean doesn’t look impressed, but he never does. His mouth is set in a stern line when he says, “You could live a thousand lives and you still would not deserve him,” as if he couldn’t quite believe himself to be allowing Andrew to push through with — with whatever this is.

Andrew’s reply is immediate and certain, “I know.”

“I have protected Kevin all my life,” Jean ignores his answer to continue. “What you poorly did for a year, I did for a decade. You mean nothing to me and I will never understand why Kevin decided to keep you in his life despite the fact that you are not worth the trouble.” He pauses to stare at his nails, the picture of faux boredom. “If you hurt him again, I will make sure that it will be the last time. Take that for the promise that it is.”

Andrew wonders, through the fog of relief that washes over him at the implied approval, when he went from the person protecting Kevin to the person Kevin needs protection from, but he knows when that happened. He knows, too, that it was his fault.

Even then, a part of him — foolish and childish and still fiercely possessive after all this time — squeezes painfully at the thought of having Kevin taken away from him forever, like a child losing their favorite blanket. “Get out of my car,” he demands, glaring in Jean’s direction. He doesn’t need and doesn’t want anything else from him; for all that Andrew cares, Jean can go die now.

“Gladly,” Jean replies, pushing the car door open and sliding out of the passenger seat. He pauses with the door open for a second before turning back to Andrew with a smile so remorseless Andrew felt the urge to carve it out. “Don't try and convince me that you are a good idea. Convince _him._ I would love to see you try.” He copies Andrew’s salute before stalking off. “Good luck. Make sure to live a very short life.”

As much as Andrew hates him, as much of an asshole Jean is, he recognizes it for the green light that it is: Jean was being generous to even talk to him at all. Kevin was the only family Jean would ever have, and may have been the only source of kindness in Jean's life for a long, long time.

If Andrew were in his position, he reckons he wouldn't be as giving. He'd run away and hide with Kevin for the rest of his life.

Maybe Neil was rubbing off on him. Doesn't matter.

_Doesn’t matter._

The thought of _then what?_ during the drive home was so thick in the air Andrew thought he could asphyxiate on anticipation alone, though he kept his tired eyes on the road and the radio so loud it drowned out all of his other thoughts; the ones that seemed to agree that there was nothing standing in his way now, nothing to stop him from chasing after a wanting so old it becomes historical; a wanting Andrew doesn’t know why he thought he’d ever be able to get rid of.

Andrew thinks he is not supposed to have this; whatever it is.

He is not supposed to have Kevin.

He is supposed to think of him while sitting alone or lying awake at night; he is not supposed to touch and care for and get comfort from him.

Andrew —

unworthy, unlovable, uncaring, unbearable,

— is supposed to get and want nothing.

But he does want. He wants more than he takes out the trash; more than he takes walks; more than he cooks dinner; more than he blocks goals and rebounces balls and shakes an opponent player's hand. He wants so often and so quietly that being ahead of the curve is an understatement, because the curve has now become a sphere. He wants so much it becomes unbearable to carry; so much so that Andrew has to hide it, repress it, smother it away, because otherwise he would not be able to live with such greediness that grows inside of him, green in its jealousy.

Denial calls, and Andrew, fool that he is, answers.

He’s — he is not supposed to have this.

He already pushed his luck with Neil.

People like him don't get this. People like him don’t get anywhere higher than rock bottom.

But Kevin is still there, picking up the phone when Andrew calls and forcing him to want something out of the dead end he made of his life, and he is — unexpectedly, magically, oh so surprisingly — _still_ there. It's a common feeling of amazement to look across a room and realize Kevin is standing there, but it’s even more disorienting to think that, after all these years, he hasn’t given up on Andrew yet. Not temporarily; not at all; not even a little bit. Andrew had always swore to Hell and back that Kevin would disappear from him with time, but that, as far as time goes, is yet to happen.

Sometimes — just sometimes — he wishes it would happen. Sometimes he wants to destroy every hope Kevin has left for him, however big or small, if only to know it was his doing.

If only to know that the world, arrogant and harsh as it is, did not have a say in how and why Andrew lost the first man to look him in the eye and tell him he was worth something.

( _You’re worth it;_ a violent, revolutionary belief Kevin hammered into his brain for so long Andrew sometimes finds himself believing it.)

If only so Andrew could learn how to live without him.

If only so Andrew can make sure that _he_ was the reason he could no longer have Kevin.

If only to know he hadn’t been snatched away by someone else; someone smarter, gentler, better to Kevin than Andrew will ever be.

But it doesn’t matter, see, because he’ll crash this car into a pole before he ever lets go of Kevin. It really is that simple, at the end of the day. Andrew never got to have anything in his life, and he sure is not about to let go of the one man he fought tooth and nail to keep.

“What did Jean say?” is the first thing Neil asks when Andrew steps into their dorm, sitting on his desk with his phone in hand and one too many spreadsheets in front of him. Robin, sitting on the desk opposite to him, offers Andrew a curt nod before submerging herself into her headphones once more.

Andrew drops onto one of the beanbags as soon as he is able to get to them, shrugging off his hoodie and letting it fall to the ground noiselessly. Whatever. He’ll pick it up when he gets up. “Nothing pleasant,” Andrew replies, though it might be hard to call it that when it gives out not a lick of the relevant information Neil asked for. “He will not be a problem,” is what Andrew says at last, knowing Neil will understand it.

“Oh,” Neil hums, giving up on homework altogether to curl up on the beanbag next to Andrew, close enough that Andrew can feel the heat of his skin without even needing to touch it. For good measure, Andrew leans close and drops a kiss to his mouth, but doesn’t linger. “ _Oh_ ,” he repeats. “That’s good.”

“Yes,” Andrew limits himself to saying, falling back into his beanbag. It’s not comfortable enough for his tense muscles and aching spine, but it’ll have to do, because he does not plan on moving. He traces the edge of Neil’s shoulder with his eyes quietly, breathing into the idea of him _,_ and murmurs: “We’ll go to Columbia this Saturday.”

A slow smile spreads across his face; sharp and beautiful, like everything in Neil is, whether Andrew likes it or not. “Good,” he replies once more, seemingly pleased to just stare and be stared at.

Neil’s eyes are too doe, too blue: Andrew has to look away. He fears if he doesn’t, he might never stop looking, and that would do good to no one.

Eden’s Twilight is always, always packed.

Andrew doesn’t know why he insists on coming.

He is sitting alone tonight — Neil stalked after Robin when she tentatively left for the dancefloor, and Nicky and Aaron have been away for much longer. The music is loud and the lights are bright; there is nothing in the world that makes sense under the neon nothing of Eden’s, and much less in Andrew’s brain.

Andrew likes his peace, likes being able to just watch, does not enjoy the feeling of too many bodies around him, and is much better off with a drink on his hand and the sight of Neil under the lights. Yet tonight, the otherwise cherished solitude is a problem — because lately all his brain seems to do when it's idle is to think of Kevin, and Neil, and the both of them. Sometimes, together; sometimes, separated. But always the both of them, twin high maintenance machines that they are.

He remembers — as well as he remembers the Spear’s landline number, what he had for lunch yesterday, the shadow Neil’s eyelashes cast over his cheekbones — the first time Kevin came to Eden's with them; how hunched and small and anxious he had looked at some point, and how he let loose after a few shots. He remembers watching Kevin drunkenly stumble onto the dance floor with inebriated bravado, and remembers giving him five minutes before bringing him back to the table with a finger hooked under the hem of his shirt, bothered by how drunk and vulnerable Kevin had been, alone and buried under so many bodies at once.

He remembers telling Kevin, _Sit down. These people will do more than just look if you let them._

Remembers Kevin's confusion — not at being desired, but at being protected. It made Andrew's hands curl into fists, then, the intensity of his stare; but he couldn't pull away from it. To this day, he can’t pull away from it.

 _Would you?_ Kevin had asked in return, drunk enough to get flirty and probably just wanting to get a reaction out of Andrew, who at that point had mastered the fine art of pretending Kevin Day couldn’t get to his head. _Would you do more than just look if I let you?_

Andrew had scoffed, then. _I would never_.

Even though he would. He would.

Kevin didn't look bothered or upset by the answer, at the time, though Andrew’s memory might fail him now; he remembers staring at everything but at Kevin that night, so it might be possible that there was a bit of disappointment there; disappointment Andrew did not want to think about. Regardless, he just took it for the rejection he thought it was and moved on. Andrew hated him for that, too — hated him for how easy it was to not hate him at all.

The memories pass through him like he's too scared to let them go, a litany of moments where Andrew could’ve swore they were two against the world, but they’re not strong enough to last him the week — Andrew always needs something stronger when it comes to Kevin; always wants more than he already has. He wants to know and compare and put in perspective; he wants every angle of Kevin he could get.

Kevin, in the morning, after coffee;

Kevin, in Neil’s eyes;

(He often wonders what Neil thinks when Kevin comes to mind — what way his mind wraps around him, what makes Kevin his as much as he is Andrew’s, the paths he goes through and the holes he falls into. Was it any softer, or did he feel it move through his body like lighting, electricity coming alive? Was it about Kevin’s soft, huffed laughter or Kevin’s shoulders, broad and capable? Andrew wants, wants, _wants—_

He isn’t just interested in Kevin as a separate entity from what he already has with Neil — he’s interested in Neil’s interest for Kevin, too.)

Kevin, postprandial;

Kevin, especially on nights like these, in Andrew’s mouth along with the whiskey, such desire behaving like a particular hunger that won't relent until fulfilled.

He wants Kevin’s real, heavy weight in contrast with the barely there press of Neil’s swift-footed muscle: a symphony of different senses, different touches, mastered in their harmony. It is a greedy, timid desire, but it is such Christian goodness — a combination of services, two of Andrew’s objects of worship adjacent to each other.

And Andrew imagines it like this, see: someone turns off the lights, someone asks you to stay, someone rests their scarred hand on your knee until you walk into a room that is made purely of warmth, the feeling up to your neck like a guillotine. Men are a complicated thing Andrew finds himself loving more often than not, though in his own ill-advised way. He never had anything for himself before, but he had — has, has, still has, not gone yet, can still be yours if you just _behave_ — Kevin once, and he has Neil now; to want them both feels like pushing his luck. _How long until this blows out in your face, Minyard?_

 _Long enough,_ he tells himself as he pushes more whiskey down his throat and tries to shake off the awkward feeling of a Kevin-less high. Andrew’s desire is so heavy in his gut; so atrocious it becomes a craving; like one craves sweet peaches or sticky ice cream. _Just long enough._

“I will not be able to let go of him,” he had warned Neil at some point, “if I ever get him. Is that clear?”

Neil had huffed, then, and leaned in for another kiss. “As if I didn’t already know.”

He knows, of course — no one knows that Andrew leaves claw marks on everything he’s desperate to hold better than Neil does.

Andrew’s daydreams are only cut short when he catches sight of reddish hair pushing through the more instant crowd, clad in a bright blue shirt Andrew got him for the sole purpose of being able to find him in the crowd. Neil isn’t necessarily the most fashionable man in the world, but he had the looks to make up for it — Andrew thought he was perfectly fine regardless, even if the clothing helped a little bit. By the look on his face, though, he can guess that Neil isn’t just dropping by to flirt.

When he catches a hold of Andrew’s sleeve, all he does is lightly tug and say, “We need to leave,” before forcibly pulling Andrew out of his stool and guiding him through the crowd. He’s careful to shield Andrew’s body with his own, keeping him away from strangers, but there is a frown to his lips that has Andrew following almost blindly, the painful thrill of worry tugging at his nape.

Neil takes him to an isolated part of the club, the crowd dispersed around a man, laid unconscious on the ground, and Robin, shaking out of her skin as she stands before him, her knuckles bloody red. She doesn’t meet Andrew’s gaze when it falls to her, but meekly steps closer to him in look for — something, perhaps comfort, Andrew can’t be sure. From where Andrew couldn’t see her before, given she was standing behind Robin, a blonde girl just barely taller than Neil himself looks up at her in starry eyed concern, soft-looking features cut into a frown.

“What,” Andrew asks, mostly to Neil, “happened here?”

Robin can’t answer, can’t meet his eyes, can’t even stop the violent shaking of her hands. Neil clears his throat, “Robin punched a creep.”

Satisfaction and pride are often feelings Andrew is a stranger to, but he thinks he might like them. Robin can’t look at him, probably wishes to never look at a man again in her life, so Andrew turns his gaze to the girl standing near her, a careful distance put between them. The lights are simultaneously too dim and too bright, but Andrew knows her face — eyes that are too apart from each other for it to be unnoticeable, high cheekbones, lips turned downwards —; she’s one of Katelyn’s (may the Lord have pity on him) Vixens, miles away from home. What she's doing so far away from Palmetto and Clemson, Andrew is not interested enough to ask, but he’ll be the man to deliver her to Katelyn’s doorstep either way.

He motions between her and Robin, “Come. We’re going back.”

The girl tips her head to the side curiously at him, but it takes Robin a long moment to focus her eyes on Andrew, offering a nod so short so small Andrew felt the urge to go back and finish the job she started himself. He doesn’t, though — it wouldn’t be appreciated —, so he does the next best thing and offers them his back so he could turn around and look for Aaron and Nicky.

Soon enough the lot of them are cramped inside the Maserati, dipped into a silence so dark it could only be nocturnal. Andrew hasn’t started the car yet — won’t until Robin’s breathing goes back to normal, until she can look any of them in the eye, until she’s not looking at every possible exit like she’s scared she’ll never be able to leave again —, so all there is to do is wait and listen to Aaron and Nicky’s drunken snores, the two of them awkwardly folded into one seat as Robin, in the middle, uses her body to protectively shield the girl from their stumbled movements.

Andrew doesn't want to question where he saw that protectiveness before, because he knows it was in the mirror. Neil, from the passenger seat, keeps sneaking worried glances at her.

Finally, _finally,_ the girl speaks out first, her words dragged in a heavy Russian accent, “That was… Something, surely.”

Robin, breaking out of her trance at the sound of her voice, looks like she just saw a poltergeist. “Are you okay?” she breathes out, tucking her shaky hands under her knees. The urge to _protect_ is so strong in Andrew’s core he’s scared it swallows up all of his anger with it.

At the same time Robin asks it, though, Neil has the brilliant idea to prompt, “Are you Russian?”

The girl blinks between them for a second. “Yes,” she replies, her voice deep and scratchy, “to both questions.” She turns to Robin, politely leaning away from her personal space. “Thank you for what you did,” she hums, “but you shouldn’t have. I’m used to it.”

“Used to men being creepy?” Robin’s frown deepens tenfold, an oceanic trench of its own.

“Yes,” the girl replies, face totally blank.

Andrew, from the driver’s seat, finally turns the car on. “That is no thing to be used to,” he limits himself to pointing out, clenching his jaw ever so slightly.

The girl steals a look at him through the rearview mirror, considering him for the first time since they walked out of the club. “I know,” she hums once more, “I am not happy about it either, see, but I’m sure you understand how awful men can be.”

 _More than you’d guess,_ Andrew thinks. He doesn't say anything else.

It’s Neil who speaks up again, stubbornly — “So, Russian.”

“Yes,” the girl agrees once more, “Russian.”

“What’s your name?” he asks.

“Evgeniya,” she tells him, tucking a long blonde strand against her ear. From the back seat, Robin fixedly stares at the side of Neil’s face, probably trying to anchor herself in the moment by remembering who she is with. “But Americans are often stupid, so the name is Gigi for you.”

Neil nods. “Gigi. Okay.” He taps a naked melody against the door handle, turning to her in a swift move. “I’m Neil. The girl who punched that dude for you is Robin.”

Gigi nods back. “What about blondie?” she asks, motioning with her head towards Andrew.

“Blondie one is Andrew and blondie two is Aaron.” Neil quirks an amused eyebrow in his direction, daring Andrew to say anything about it. He doesn’t. “The other one that's passed out is Nicky.”

“I know,” Gigi eventually replies, “you’re Foxes.”

“Yes. And you’re a Vixen,” Neil points out.

“Occasionally,” she smacks her lips, looking out of the window for a second before confessing: “I knew Aaron already. When I asked, I meant the one on the wheel.”

Andrew wonders if the Vixens know as little about the Foxes' inner affairs as the Foxes knew about theirs, but he eventually concludes that they do — most Foxes (excluding Aaron, who had to know because of Katelyn) couldn’t name more than four Vixens if they were paid to do it.

“Do you like Exy?” Neil asks, probably just filling in the silence so Robin has something to distract herself with. Andrew doesn’t know if it’s working as well as he intended it to, but she doesn’t look all that disconnected from them anymore, so maybe it is.

Gigi frowns slightly. “Of course I do. I cheer for Exy games.” She pauses momentarily before adding, “I’ve seen you score before. With Kevin Day.”

Ah, yes: the man of the hour. The name no man could escape from for too long if he planned on interacting even the slightest bit with Exy. Neil becomes fidgety at the mention, but no one that’s not Andrew can see it in the dark.

“I’ve never seen you cheer,” Neil confesses.

“That’s because Exy players are self-centered,” she huffs briefly, crossing her arms around the front of her dress protectively. There is no reason to, given only one (very passed out, unfortunately very loyal) man in this car likes women and Robin is too shaken up to even consider staring at her, but Andrew understands the need to hide either way. They’re strangers. “You wouldn't see the world ending right in front of you if you had a racquet in your hands.”

Andrew hides the twitch of his lips, amused.

Neil doesn't protest, because they both know it’s true, but changes the subject: “I know a little bit of Russian and I'm trying not to lose it. Can you tell me what to work on more if I speak it to you?”

Gigi thinks for a second before nodding her yes. “If you please.”

It takes Neil less than a second to disappear into a string of Russian words Andrew does not understand, and he tunes out of their conversation by instinct, instead catching Robin's eyes through the rearview mirror he oh so conveniently turned to her.

He raises an eyebrow in her direction, something dangerously alike to an implied _'are you okay?_ ', and all she does is slowly shake her head no, eyes glossy and miles away from Andrew.

Andrew nods, and turns on the radio. Something worried and almost familial curls on an empty corner of his heart, but he smothers it away before he can fully acknowledge it.

By the time they're close to Palmetto, Gigi calls her roommates to let them know of her situation, and Andrew watches from a distance as Robin walks her to her dorm building, her arms crossed and her expression brooding, following after Gigi’s figure like a shadow. Neil watches with him, a curious look to his features, and the trio of them walk home together under the darkness of the night, Palmetto’s triade of ghosts as they disappear into shadows.

Neil is the first to disappear from the suite to the bedroom, probably presuming Andrew and Robin would be having a conversation of their own, and Andrew kisses him goodnight before carefully and ever so slowly moving to sit across the spot on the floor Robin had curled up on herself in, her back to the corner of the room so she could see it in its entirety. It’s something Andrew thinks she might have gotten from him, or maybe developed during her years in confinement. Either way, he waits patiently for her to talk, the tight coil of her column looking particularly painful from where Andrew could see it.

It takes her a few minutes and a shaky breath to finally let out a soft, “The things that could have happened if I didn't get there on time.”

“You were there,” Andrew observes, more clinical than he’s ever been.

He knows he's being hypocritical, trying to somehow comfort Robin about this when he felt and said the same thing so many times before, but Andrew had never once claimed to be a virtuous person.

Bee tells him it's unnecessary guilt. Andrew doesn't know how to let it go, and is in no better condition to tell her to do it.

He tells her anyway.

“But if I weren’t,” Robin gently murmurs, cowering against the wall a bit tighter at the mental image of such a vague _what if._

Andrew presses his lips into a tight line, drawing a slow breath from his lungs. “People get assaulted every day. You can't save every single one of them. It is not your responsibility.”

 _One to talk_ , Neil's voice on his head tells him. Andrew wants it — and him, and everyone, and everything — to shut up.

There is a moment of silence where Robin fidgets with the end of her braids for a long, long period before she admits, in the smallest voice Andrew has ever seen her use, “I feel like it is. I keep—” she runs a shaky hand through her face. “She could've been taken away. Then what would have happened? I didn't even see his face. He could've been trying something much, much worse, and who knows— he might still try it with another girl.”

“You did not know her,” Andrew slowly replies, putting it down like a teacher does to a child, “you would not have even heard about it if something had happened.”

“But I know her now,” Robin protests, fidgeting so strongly now that Andrew briefly considers pulling her hands away. He doesn’t entertain the thought: everything about Robin, in this moment, tells him she does not want to be touched, and will react badly to it. “I know her now. I know that her name is Gigi and that she is Russian and that— that she’s _used_ to it. How do I live with that knowledge?”

 _How do I live knowing it was me once, and it might be me again one day?_ goes unsaid, because they both know well enough that that question does not have an easy answer.

Andrew considers his next words carefully, because Robin deserves an honest reply. “You live with it by acknowledging that it is not your fault,” he tells her, slowly easing his weight onto the ground and against his palms, touching the empty space between them. He has his legs crossed, Neil’s shirt a soft comfort against his skin, and he _understands —_ he wants to tell Robin he _understands,_ and he _knows,_ and he _sees her_ in spite of everyone else that did not. “The same way it is not your duty,” Andrew continues, “to be the patron saint of sexual assault survivors. No one asked you to be that, so don't be it. You will fail.”

Robin quietly stares at him, her gaze indecipherable, and it’s Andrew’s truth against her own — Andrew’s hazel eyes against her almost pitch black ones.

They are one as much as they are opposites, Andrew thinks — mirrored sunken faces, dead eyes, calloused hands. For all that they physically differ in, they make up for it with their unrelenting understanding of each other, which is based on the mutual agreement that they both could have ended up like the other did if things had only been a little bit different. Maybe Andrew would have been the one shaking out of his skin, in another timeline, and maybe Robin would have been the one telling him to stop.

It was an odd thought, but no less true because of it.

It takes her a few minutes, but Robin eventually uncurls from her tight coil, tentatively leaving the comfort of having her back pressed to the wall to mirror Andrew’s crossed legs. It must take everything in her to trust Andrew to be in the room right now, so he doesn't move a limb, staying still with a blank expression and letting her battle out her thoughts on her own. At last, she softly pleads, “Don’t let anyone take me away.”

It’s a simple request that sounds scarily like something Andrew heard before — _I will ask you again, do not let him take me away_ —, but feels no less awful than it did when he first heard it.

“You know I won’t,” he tells her. A promise, maybe, but only to himself. Robin nods, but it does so little to ease the stressed thing her face has become that Andrew finds himself adding: “You will not have me to protect you all the time, but you will always have yourself. You knocked him out.”

Robin scrunches her nose up in disgust. “He deserved _so_ much worse, but I—” frustratedly, she picks at the hem of her shirt. “I couldn’t do it. He deserved a real ass-kicking, he deserved it _so_ much, but I couldn't do it.” She pauses, then looks up at Andrew, “Does it make me a coward that I couldn’t do it?”

She is so alike to Kevin, Andrew thinks, that it’s almost sickening to watch. “No,” Andrew answers, because he can’t — won’t — stand for Robin beating herself up over it. “I knew that when I first taught you how to spare. I knew you would not use it.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head. “Don’t be. I did not expect you to change personalities completely. The only thing I expected from you is that you would be able to protect yourself and others when you had to. Tonight you have shown me you are capable of doing it.”

She nods again, a little bit calmer now. The distance between the both of them is respectful, but powerful — it shows a mutual respect for the other’s boundaries that has Andrew’s head growing hazy with it, startled by how much love there could be even for people like them. He is twenty-one years old now, will be twenty-two soon, and every now and then he plays a game with himself: _would this have happened had I stayed with Cass Spear?_

No, of course, the answer is no. He wouldn’t have had Robin; wouldn’t have had Kevin and Neil; wouldn’t have had Aaron and Nicky; wouldn’t have had anything that he now has. She is just a stain on his past now, her and her awful son, something Andrew will grow to forget — Cass Spear, sooner or later, will be buried under newer, lovelier memories, because a ghost cannot lay a hand on him, and, likewise, you cannot wrap your arms around a ghost. A dead man and his grieving mother cannot touch him anymore.

Robin brings her knees to her chest, resting her cheek against it. “Thank you,” she murmurs. “You’re a national treasure, did you know that?”

And she says it so softly, quietly so as to not scare him, that Andrew does not have it in himself to disagree with her. _You're a national treasure,_ she says to a man who never had and never amounted to anything. Andrew wants to know from which part of their conversation she got that from, but in her fragile state she might consider it a rejection from his part, and he'd rather not break something so loosely put back together.

He nods, at last. “So you say. Where will you sleep?”

Robin grimaces, so Andrew corrects himself: “What do you need?”

“I want,” she starts, stammering ever so quietly. Watching her fidget is similar to watching a child slowly drawing out their first words, infantile in her shyness, but Andrew thinks it’s — in some twist of his mind — quite… Endearing. “Do you…” Robin frowns. “Do you reckon Kevin is awake?”

Andrew would chuckle if he was the type of person who did such a thing. “Do you need him to bore you into falling asleep?”

Robin offers him a sheepish smile; so foreign on her lips it looked like a flinch. “Would it kill you if I said yes?”

“I don’t care about what you do with Kevin,” he tells her for good measure, letting his face fall stoic once more.

She stays silent for a second, probably weighing whether she wants to push her luck tonight, but eventually makes a decision. The scale tips towards positive, it seems, because she points out, “But you care about Kevin.”

At this point, it feels like a stupidly obvious thing to accuse him of. Andrew scoffs, “Kevin is unpleasant,” but does not disagree, because he is not fond of lying.

It's also not an answer, but he knows that Robin is not stupid. She sighs, “Yes, he is. I miss his unpleasantries.”

Robin is such a ferocious lover, Andrew distantly considers, that it might as well kill her one day. She loved Kevin even when he was a pain, even when he was rude, even when all he had to offer her was harsh criticism. She was good to him and, in return, he was good to her — a fraternal type of love no one really saw coming, not from Kevin, but that Andrew understood.

Kevin, and likewise, Robin, was not hard to love. The two of them craved gentleness like they craved air; they just did not know how to ask for it.

Andrew, against his very best judgement, calls Kevin before Robin can. It's that stupid need to merely talk to him, even if there is nothing to talk about, that motivates him to pick up the phone and call. He never thought he’d miss Kevin’s unending rants — he still can’t quite believe it —, but now they’ve become a symbol of comfort, because they usually meant that Kevin was safe and happy, two things Andrew held as a priority. Andrew likes to think about that mental image before bed, at night and awake with his thoughts: Kevin, safe and asleep with his stupidly fancy sleeping mask on, charging up for another day of playing the sport he loves and sitting around under the sun. Kevin, Andrew’s to keep and Andrew’s to lose even when he’s away. Especially when he’s away.

Sometimes Andrew smothers away the possessive spark that comes with such a thought; sometimes he does not.

The first thing Kevin says when he picks up the phone — after the fourth ring, his voice tired and dead to the world enough to have Andrew slightly tensing up before he remembers it is the middle of the night, and Kevin was probably asleep — is a hushed, “Andrew? What’s wrong?”

Andrew reckons it might have not been his best idea to call Kevin out of the blue at such late hours. “Nothing happened,” he replies, eyeing Robin from across the room. She nods at him — a small, fluttery thing —, and Andrew continues, “Robin knocked a creep out today.”

He can picture Kevin’s frown perfectly when he asks, “Is she okay? She didn’t tell me anything.”

Andrew quirks an eyebrow. Not like Kevin can see it. “I did not realize you and Robin were so involved in schoolgirl gossip.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“She is okay,” he rolls his eyes, “says she needs you to bore her into falling asleep.”

There is a short pause from Kevin’s side of the line, followed by the unmistakable sound of the flicker of a lamp and a long yawn. “Okay,” Kevin says, sounding more awake now, “pass her the phone, then.”

Unexpectedly even to himself, Andrew doesn't — he settles the phone between him and Robin and puts it on speaker. “You are on speaker,” he announces.

Kevin takes a heartbeat too long to answer. “Okay. What do you want me to talk about, Robin?”

“You could…” Robin takes a brief moment to consider, her tense muscles slowly unwinding. “You could finish that rant about Pompeii from last week.”

Andrew has no idea what such a thing could entail, and does not care enough about Pompeii to understand how Kevin could rant about it, but doesn’t interject. In the end, Kevin is the one who does, saying, “Andrew wasn't there to hear it. He won't understand a thing.”

It's a ridiculously misplaced kindness, given Andrew doesn't pay attention to nor cares about anything, but it doesn’t stop Kevin from brainstorming a new topic regardless.

He settles on something a bit more boring than usual — his own words, though Kevin doesn't seem to find the topic boring at all — and gets to work. Robin pays attention earnestly for the first ten minutes, but Andrew does for the entire half of an hour Kevin is talking, focusing more on the sound of his voice than the words he is saying. Andrew will permanently remember said words in a way Robin could not. One day she will not recall Kevin's extensive thoughts on the British occupation of Ireland, but Andrew will, as he is unable to forget both the man and the words he says, only half of it due to his eidetic memory.

When Robin lets out a small yawn, Kevin stops mid-sermon to ask, “Is this boring enough for you?”, and Andrew briefly wonders how Kevin could tell it was her, and not Andrew. Kevin knows them quite better than he gives them credit for.

She rubs a hand across her face. “Yes. Thank you.”

Kevin hums. “Andrew?”

“You,” he replies as if a student claiming a spot at an attendance sheet, “are always boring enough.”

“Then go to bed, the both of you.”

Robin stirs softly, getting up in one swift move. Her movements are still shaky and guarded when she moves to the bedroom, offering them a quiet goodnight, but she will survive nevertheless, because she knows nothing else but unshakeable persistence. She has the means to push through this, and Andrew knows it.

Kevin yawns from his side of the line, and says, “I thought I said the both of you.”

“I thought we established long ago that you do not tell me what to do,” Andrew replies with his usual amount of boredom, though he takes the phone off the speaker and tucks it against his ear all the same, clinging to any idea of closeness he can have.

There is a quiet moment, then, and Andrew hears it when Kevin falls back into the bed with a soft thud. It’s engraved in his mind, the image, though it’s more of a daydream than anything else. “Are you well, Andrew?” Kevin eventually asks, his voice the softest it could get, folded elegantly to the shades of the night.

 _Am I?_ he asks himself, but there's no need to.

Andrew is as well as he can be, which is not a lot, but better than things once were. He only loses the battle against his brain a couple of times a month instead of every day. He is well. And he wants, misses, yearns for Kevin; to even be able to acknowledge that shows just how well Andrew is, and how far he’s come.

He doesn’t tell him any of that, though, and instead asks: “Tell me something.”

Kevin hums his compliance, probably too tired to argue with Andrew’s response or lack thereof. “My therapist thinks I should get a trained dog,” he replies; both an open confession that he’s been going to therapy and a sign that he cares about therapy enough to consider taking its advice. “Jean says he wouldn’t mind a pet in the apartment.”

Andrew hums. A trained dog — a companion that would be next to Kevin at all times to protect him from others and from himself. If Andrew were the type of person who told jokes, he'd say Kevin had found a replacement for him.

He shuffles over memories and thoughts, considering what to tell Kevin in return, and eventually settles for, “Nicky got me an orchid for an early birthday present.” A pause. “He cried when I let him touch my shoulder.”

“An orchid,” Kevin echoes, ignoring the last part of Andrew’s confession. They work well like that — Kevin knows Andrew doesn’t want for it to be acknowledged as much as he wants to tell someone that it happened. “Do you know how to take care of that?”

Andrew's eyes naturally flicker to the flower sitting atop of his desk. “No.”

“I’ll ask Jean and send you instructions.”

“Okay.”

They stay quiet for a few minutes after that. Andrew, listening to Kevin’s soft breathing and basking in the reassurance that he is okay, safe, and in one piece, and Kevin, who probably just misses being able to slow down and listen to the quiet for a little while.

Kevin is the first to fall asleep, the call still very much ongoing. Of course — for someone who so often dismisses other comforts, Kevin is a big fan of sleeping. Andrew hears the sound of a quiet snore and the muffled sound of the phone hitting the mattress not even a few seconds after his breath evens out, and taps a silent melody against his ankle. He listens to Kevin's breathing for a few more seconds before finishing the call.

When he goes to bed, he stares at the rise and fall of Neil's chest from the bed across his before falling asleep himself.

 _Mine_ , he thinks. _Safe. The both of them._

It's a soft life for a very harsh person. Andrew is done trying to convince himself that he doesn't deserve it.

Andrew Minyard’s short lived happiness lives to see another day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm dayurno on tumblr so drop by to say hi or ask a question!!!!!!!!!!!! have a good day and we shall meet again on the 20th


	5. forehead kisses break my knees in /

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the girls are COMMUNICATINGGGGGB
> 
> tw mentions of abuse (tilda) and death. also choking incident

For all of Andrew’s wit and observational skills, there are still things he does not understand about Kevin’s infinite devotion to not only solitude, but every wretched and yearning aspect of it.

He withdraws, that much Andrew knows. It’s a vicious niche of wishing for personal space Kevin was never allowed to have before that Andrew can understand and relate to, and that’s where most of his certainty lies: the perception that Kevin likes to be alone to a point of exile because he did not know how to form connections with the people around him, and so far every attachment he’d made failed to rise to his expectations in one way or another.

Still, Andrew wonders how far is too far. Kevin knows — he must know — how to withdraw too deep into one’s own solitude, but he does not know from experience that you do not get to come back from it once you find yourself farther from anyone else than you are from the long drop ahead of you. He does not know, like Andrew does, that the illusion of a choice in loneliness is as addictive of a drug as the yearning it creates, and he does not understand, like Andrew does, that all it takes is a small slip to fall over the edge and never come back.

Kevin played with isolation like a child playing at the edge of an abyss, blissfully unaware of the long fall that awaited him when he inevitably made the first wrong move. Andrew was irrevocably, uncontrollably, hysterically terrified that, by the time Kevin tipped over, it would already be too late for him to be pulled back to them. That he would be gone forever, and estranged from Andrew’s arms to never be seen again.

Andrew never told him about it, never would, but he likes to imagine what would happen if he did. He likes to think that Kevin would try to tell him, as well as he could, what it was like being Kevin Day — and he’d describe the feeling of always feeling misplaced, a ghost standing in the corner of the room while life goes on for those who still think they’re lucky to be alive, and wondering if this was how everyone else felt. It was, at least, the way Andrew felt, and he’d like to think that Kevin would understand it if Andrew ever worked up the sensibility to tell him.

 _Me?_ Kevin had nonchalantly asked during one of their sessions with Betsy, just two years ago. It had been a particularly bad session: lots of fighting, cussing, shaking, crying, every sin in the book. _I?_ he repeated himself. _I walk alone._

 _You do not,_ Andrew had snapped back at him.

 _There is no one,_ Kevin had insisted, raking a hand through his hair — shorter at the time; Andrew thinks it looks nicer the way it is now — as if his word was the ultimate, incontestable truth of the universe. _Now I know that I am alone. Men don’t protect me anymore._

Andrew had wanted to say — _I do. I will. Even if you hate me._

He did not say it, of course. Even now, Andrew wouldn’t say it. But that does not mean the feeling doesn’t remain, however much the Kevin of the time (and perhaps the Kevin of now) did not want to hear it.

Baltimore — a vile city, with vile memories attached to it — had made a number on them; bigger than they’d like to admit. Likewise, Andrew remembers every second he’d spent to, from and in Baltimore, all of them equally despicable and unwanted. Likewise, if he could burn one city — and everything it represented — to the ground, he’d choose this one.

Likewise, he remembers the moment Kevin fell out of his protection, in the very bus Andrew still steps into for away games every time, and how it felt to lose his superhuman, unwavering trust and faith.

Likewise, he also remembers realizing that was happening at all.

It started with the dark gray detachment, the quiet tying of loose ends — one day Kevin's things were just not there anymore, standing across Andrew’s bed like they should have been. _A few days at Coach's_ , is what he said when Nicky asked. Andrew didn't believe even a word of it, but he should’ve realized then. He did not, of course; a foolish mistake he oh so sorely paid for.

Then came the silence; blue like nothing Andrew had ever known. He realized only a week after the sudden move out that he hadn't heard a word from Kevin since — since the cabin, and even then he had been scarce and dry. Andrew didn't want the realization to bother him, so he didn't let it. It still did.

It still did.

Night practice — black nights, swallowing up the sun — was what confirmed it. Kevin did not speak more than a few words to Andrew and made sure to never be quite within his reach, asking him to participate in practice but giving up a minute later, unusual for his otherwise fierce personality. He spoke to Neil with his usual flair and passion, but made sure to school his face blank whenever he inevitably had to be around Andrew, who still took them to and fro the court.

At that point the so called few days at Coach's had become weeks, and outside of practice there was no Kevin Day to be seen or spoken to. It’s like he had disappeared from them — an apparition slowly fading into nothing, as if it never existed at all. Nicky commented on it every now and then, and Neil agreed, but neither knew the reason.

Andrew only understood it when Allison, ever the team's honesty pinnacle, asked Kevin if he wasn't pushing Andrew to practice as much as before because he was scared Andrew was charging up for a Baltimore rematch. The penny dropped, then.

Kevin wasn't disappearing from them — he was disappearing from _Andrew._

He didn't reply to Allison’s question at the time, but Andrew made sure that she got Exy balls aimed at her ankles for all of the following month.

That was the first — and last — time Andrew ever considered letting Kevin go for good. He would have done it, even, if something dangerously afraid hadn’t gripped around his heart, squeezing it so tightly Andrew thought his bones would collapse from the sheer intensity of his undying guilt, his maxima culpa. He couldn't have done it then. He still couldn’t do it now.

From then on, it had been a battle of wills — Andrew, who was not as good at mending things as he was at breaking them, did everything he could possibly do.

He spoke to Kevin.

He promised to make up for it.

He told Kevin that if he ever laid a hand on him again that he was expected and welcome to just punch Andrew into oblivion.

He tried Exy.

But, of course, nothing worked. Because Andrew broke a boundary that shouldn't have been broken in any circumstances, and he hated himself for doing it almost as much as he hated himself for not knowing how to fix it.

It was two months into their cold war that Andrew brought it up to Betsy, who, in return, used her end of the grapevine to bring it up to Wymack, who brought it up to Kevin.

 _A joint session_ , she said. _You and Andrew._

 _Just one?_ Kevin had asked, mistrust flaring up.

 _However many you need,_ Betsy promised.

The first sessions were rocky as were the first months. Andrew does not like to think of them now that they are through — if he represses all of those memories, he can believe that one day he will be able to forget Kevin’s angry lips snarling out a promise of hating Andrew until forever, until he couldn’t remember why he hated Andrew in the first place. _A damage you can never undo,_ Kevin had called it.

Andrew had wanted, wanted, wanted — to bleach out the memories, to carve them out, to not care; to not feel the irrecusable pull towards Kevin, to not share the wrecked grief nestled in his chest. He wanted to not care so desperately it threaded through his life like a sharp needle, leaving behind a crooked hem made of unexpected guilt and longing.

But he did care. And with work, time and that same care, Kevin slowly — slowly, so slowly — came back to him.

In baby steps, tentatively, pensively; but he did. It came with much struggling and fighting from his part, of course; Kevin was never expected to go out with grace, and he mercilessly tore through Andrew with every step he took towards him, close but never, never enough. It is sorely earned, the fickle closeness of them. Andrew knows the work it took to get there, and how easy it would be to destroy it once more.

They were only well again after one final confrontation. Andrew, desperate as he remembers being, had bared his neck to Kevin and told him to — finally, _finally —_ make them even, the request violently denied as if Andrew had hit him again. Nonetheless, that was the silver lining that divided their relationship: Kevin refused to hurt Andrew the same way he’d been hurt, but he still needed the vulnerability from him to know that Andrew wouldn't hurt him again.

Andrew remembers losing him as well as he remembers getting Kevin back: it was a light feeling, something quite alike to rebirth; to resurfacing from under the water long after the oxygen ran out; to ships sunk by loose lips coming alive once more. They were dealt with the ruins of their relationship, surely, but there was a new light to it now that Andrew’s promises had shifted, now that the scales weren’t so deadly tipped to one side or another — they had been broken into pieces, but, in the process, light came through every razor-like sharp and made them anew once more. They were two sides of a cracked mirror, and Andrew had an entire lifetime to put the pieces back together.

Andrew didn't realize how much he needed to know Kevin wasn't leaving until he made the decision to stay. Everything that came after that paled in comparison to it.

Maybe that is why, in a moment like this, Andrew still can’t quite believe how much redemption he’s been given — not just from Kevin, but from every poor, unfortunate soul that decided to keep Andrew Minyard in their life, despite knowing that he is not and has never once been worth the trouble. Andrew is twenty-one years old, soon to be twenty-two, and he still can’t quite understand why anyone would stick with him for the sole sake of it.

He sits with Aaron on the roof, the autumn breeze pushing through the pair of blond heads like a vodka-high, and the quiet would be almost comfortable if it weren’t so unnerving to just have Aaron there, for once in total silence. He doesn't know how this happened, really — nothing with Aaron makes sense to him, and Andrew is just now trying to come to terms with the fact that it never will —, but there they were: talking, the pair of them; almost-brothers. Almost-family. Almost-Andrew and Almost-Aaron.

Andrew chewed on a piece of bubblegum Aaron complained about, Aaron peeked far enough over the ledge to make Andrew drag him behind by the back of his shirt, and they were two. Just two.

Two sides of another, older cracked mirror. Andrew owned many of those, it seems, because he is still coming to terms with loving something without owning it.

“Since when are you and Kevin friends?” he eventually asks into the blue of the afternoon, a ratchet whisper from somewhere between his teeth that Andrew couldn’t quite get rid of before it slipped out. “When did that happen?”

Aaron rolls his eyes at the question, a predictable reaction Andrew took years to not roll his eyes back at. Small Christianities of them, Andrew supposes.

“Since you and him started fighting,” Aaron replies at last, leaning back on his hands. Against the vast sky, he looks smaller than Andrew has ever seen him look: it’s almost as if time had really fallen back upon itself this time, and they were children once again, knowing nothing about each other but that they were born brothers and would die as such.

“So wanting me dead is what brought you two together,” Andrew hums, nonchalant, as he switches the awfully tasteless bubblegum from one cheek to the other. It’s a despicable sweet, but it’s better than a cigarette — candy will kill him slower than lung cancer, at least.

Aaron huffs a sound that could be a laugh. “Something like that.” Silence follows right after, the anticipating air between the nail and the hammer, before Aaron tentatively offers, “I made him promise to be Katelyn's pretend-husband if I die. When I die. His Exy fortune will surely comfort her.”

Andrew quirks an eyebrow to show that he is listening. Aaron continues, “I suppose that means I'll have to be Kevin's pretend-Andrew when you die.” He pauses. “Or is Josten second to the throne?”

 _Second to the throne._ A queen can't be without a king for too long, supposedly.

Andrew does not want to know what is Aaron's understanding of his relationship with both Kevin and Neil for him to equate Andrew's behavior with the former to the one of a husband. Nevertheless, his chest jolts awake in interest at the thought.

"You will make a terrible job at being me.”

Aaron scoffs in disdain. “I already have the looks down to a T.” He motions between the both of them as if Andrew did not know that they were twins. “And Kevin will make a lot of money, so I'm putting myself out there the second you're out of the equation. I'll fight Josten for that fortune tooth and nail.”

“He would win,” Andrew replies, monotone. _But not for the fortune._

“You either believe in him too much or in me too little.”

Sometimes Andrew doesn’t even believe Aaron is real — for all that it’s worth, the odds still favor his theory that he made Aaron up in foster care as a kid to make himself feel less lonely.

Aaron takes Andrew’s lack of a response as a motivator to fall silent, but the pause doesn’t last long. He is chatty today, Andrew distantly observes: he must be in a good mood.

“He never wanted you dead,” Aaron informs him almost petulantly, as if a child telling a secret. “Kevin, that is. Neither did I. I think we had just come into terms with our place in your life compared to Neil's.”

He stills in surprise, the piece of bubblegum stuck on his front teeth. “Neil is not the pinnacle of nor the reason for my existence.”

Aaron rolls his eyes at that, but it's almost… Fond. “I know that now. It's stupid, anyways. Fighting for your affection. I should've known it doesn't work.”

For maybe the first time in his life, Andrew Minyard is at loss of what to say.

He wants to reply — you never had to. You will never have to.

He wants to tell Aaron all about the sleeping lion in his chest, the one that loves him oh so dearly and can't stand the thought of it, the one that takes control each time Aaron is in danger, or away for too long. The one Andrew can’t tame, can’t ignore, can’t look away from for more than five minutes: the one that is merciless, cruel, and terribly blind.

He doesn't, though. He says — “Do not speak of what you do not understand.”

“No, I do understand now.” Aaron shakes his head, a lazy movement that is more smug than it is angry. “Brother mine, I understand how you work. Years of intensive therapy have taught me that.”

Andrew doesn’t reply. He pulls out a cigarette from his back pocket, but does not smoke it — Neil says it’s masochistic to keep a pack with him even now that Andrew is trying to quit, but Neil talks too much. Andrew is perfectly good at picking his poisons, and he’s had enough of cigarettes now that his newer, stronger addiction is a three hours drive away from him, and Andrew is still learning how to resist it.

He flicks Aaron on the back of his head, but does not say anything else. Minutes or a lifetime later, that is how Neil finds them: inches apart from each other, a matched set of grim faces and pale curly hair. When he is close enough to see their faces, Neil smiles a small, sharp thing Andrew wants to kiss off his face. “Aren’t the two of you cozy,” he murmurs, sounding half-surprised.

Aaron’s glare is heavy on Neil’s back as he takes Andrew’s other side, folding his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around it. It’s unnecessarily antagonistic, but at least it isn’t a fight, which is a new development for both of them.

Andrew acknowledges him with nothing aside from a short glance. His grin widens. “What are we talking about?” Neil prompts in faux cheer.

“How we plan to announce your permanent ban from the Columbia house this Christmas supper,” Aaron hums back, completely deadpan.

“Oh, nice,” he fake cheers. “How are you, Robin and Nicky going to keep the Monsters going without Andrew, Kevin, and I, though?”

 _Andrew, Kevin, and I._ Neil considers them a unit: if one leaves, so do the other two.

Andrew hates him. Hates, hates, hates him.

“I will push you out of this roof, Josten,” Aaron simply replies, turning his gaze to the skyline as if he were considering it. “I am not my brother.”

Neil sighs in disappointment. “I know.”

Aaron reaches out behind Andrew's back to punch Neil in his shoulder. Andrew lets him on the ground that Aaron acknowledged the fact that they are brothers twice today, which is two times more than he acknowledged it in the past five years. _Damn it, Bee._

His brother’s words were — supposedly — innocent, but they don't leave his mind for the rest of the weekend, even if there is nothing he can do about wars won and lost in the past.

The Kevin Fight — how Nicky called it since Kevin snapped at them for calling it The Choking Accident, claiming it couldn't have been an accident because Andrew did it on purpose — was emotionally and mentally draining for many reasons they are yet to fully heal from, though both Kevin and Andrew are on their way to do it. Six months was too long of a time to go without Kevin, Andrew figured out, and his limit has gone a lot shorter now that he came back to the Monsters.

It's been more or less two weeks since he last saw Kevin in person, and his tolerance has been getting lower and lower as his withdrawal symptoms began to rise again. Andrew could recognize the signs of an empty nest from a mile away now: fussing over Aaron on the ledge even though there was no chance of him falling, walking Robin to her classes in the morning, or going as insanely far as to linger on an Exy article that mentions the South Carolina Stingrays despite himself.

(Andrew learned their entire lineup by accident, and is now cursed with names he doesn’t care about for all of eternity. Kevin doesn’t mention any of the Stingrays during their conversations, granted that they don't text all that much. Still, Andrew calls often, mere excuses to just talk to Kevin that he ultimately hates himself for making up.

The only comfort is knowing that Neil, constipated and repressed as he is, does the same.)

The thing about The Kevin Fight was not that it was one long, dragged out Cold War that felt more like being rightfully punished than a full-on reciprocal quarrel: it was the small battles they fought along the way that made Andrew always think twice before slipping into blind rage nowadays.

Because Kevin, much like Andrew expected, was merciless with his words.

He was not Neil: his words were never aimed to hurt, never meant to retaliate against Andrew’s many weak spots.

He was also not Andrew: he played no mind games and had no time for nonsense.

Kevin was methodical and honest and teared into people ruthlessly, refusing to back down from his own hurt feelings or make them more palatable.

 _Have you ever considered that your words could hurt Andrew?_ Betsy had asked during one of their particularly worst sessions.

 _Well, has Andrew ever considered that hurting me would have sent me back to step one in terms of recovery?_ Kevin had answered, and after a pause, uttered with the utmost confidence: _Let it ache. He asked for honesty and I am giving it to him._

Kevin did not care for hurting Andrew, then — he got no sense of superiority or satisfaction from it, and nothing he said had been tweaked for harm. Instead, the words had been an almost feral call, a seething _listen to me, listen, just listen to me_ that Andrew couldn’t have ignored with a gun to his forehead.

Where Andrew had been stone-cold in his silence, Kevin had been brutally sincere with his emotions: he peeled back the layers and layers of abuse unflinchingly, courageous in his vulnerability to the likes of nothing Andrew knew. He had once been a man so broken he had no choice but to pull himself back together through his softest bits, and it was under the guidance of Betsy Dobson that he found it in himself to undress from his harshest parts, only to learn that his ugly grief was just as sharp as his unshakeable anger.

It was the bravest thing Andrew has ever seen him — anyone — do, and that was why his words hurt in the first place: because they were true and he meant them.

That was also why, when Kevin promised to hate him until forever, a lifetime away from now, something in Andrew crumbled. It’s not as if Andrew hadn’t heard worse before, but no one had ever said it with so much sincerity, so much raw, unadulterated grief since Aaron, and the comparison made it all that more hurtful, because both times had been Andrew’s fault. Because Kevin meant those words fiercely, and the hatred he felt was real; everlasting; burning.

Kevin never addressed that promise again, and two years later Andrew is still too afraid to ask if he kept it.

Sometimes he thinks that he did. Sometimes he hopes that he did not.

Andrew gets his first contract offer from a professional team at the same practice Robin gets asked out on a date for the first time, and, in perfect Monster fashion, neither seem too happy about it, though for entirely different reasons.

The suited up man that approached him with a spot for the Boston Crusaders was a grizzly, unpleasantly polite representative that did nothing but give him a folder full of documents, meticulously chosen articles and a plane ticket due for a week from now, so that Andrew could attend an event for upcoming Pro league players, which was promised to be full to the brim with fellow college seniors and teams looking for new additions. A banquet of sorts, Andrew supposed, since he did not pay attention to the explanation. He tuned out of the man's words soon enough — Andrew was as interested in the Boston Crusaders as he was in Exy, which is, of course, not at all.

The prospect of even attending such a pathetic, dick-measuring event felt hellish enough for Andrew to push the idea to the very back of his mind.

On the other hand, Robin did not seem as adamant about refusing the date offer as Andrew was about not showing up to said event. Andrew watches as she struggles out of her helmet, a soft furrow to her eyebrows as the remaining Vixens evacuate the part of the Court they usually take up for practicing during the off season. When she sits by Andrew’s side on the bleachers, looking over the orange dots that their teammates had become as a break had been called, he places the folder on his lap and turns his attention to her.

“What did she want?” Andrew asks, motioning his head towards Gigi’s — an awful nickname Andrew would not be caught dead repeating — figure, considerably far away from them as she helps a fellow cheerleader pick up cones.

Robin’s frown deepens, her face a study in confusion. “A… Date,” she replies, as if the words were foreign on her tongue; never said before. The corners of her mouth tug downwards. “She’s… She’s not even Russian.”

Andrew tilts his head to the side in question.

She blinks slowly. “Yeah,” Robin hums, as if she could read Andrew’s mind, “she’s an acting major and the accent was just to see if we’d… Fall for it.” She paused. “Everything she told Neil about his Russian was a lie.”

He thinks he should be angry that he got fooled by a nineteen year old college sophomore, but she was good and, credit where credit's due, he _was_ fooled. Andrew did not care enough to feel offended, but he is betting Neil will.

“What is that?” Robin points to the folder on his lap curiously.

Andrew stares back at it as if he had forgotten it was there at all. “Doesn’t matter,” he replies. “They’re calling for you down there.”

With his chin, Andrew points towards the orange blur that belongs to him, calling Robin over with a scarred, gloveless hand to presumably discuss new training strategies. She turns her attention to Neil, squinting as if she couldn’t quite see him, and tucks her helmet under her arm as she leaves to meet his good grace, offering Andrew a curt nod of goodbye in the process.

Neil is the first to know about both the offer and the event, but that is only because, on that very same evening, Andrew slaps the folder on the surface of his desk while Neil was working on a spreadsheet and tells him, quite bluntly, that he had been offered a contract. Neil, who had only been pretending to do work at all, skims over the contents of the folder with barely concealed excitement, probably already thinking of the merch he's going to buy for the Crusaders before Andrew announces, low and final, "I will not play Exy until I retire."

That is enough to get Neil's attention away from the folder. He looks at Andrew and nods at him to continue, putting the contents of the folder down temporarily to give him his full, undivided consideration.

“I will play until you, me and Kevin make it to Court, and then I will take the money I've hoarded and live with it for as long as it lasts me,” Andrew ultimately informs him, leaning against the edge of Neil’s desk and crossing his arms. “This decision is final. I will not play for as long as you will. That is not up to debate; it's a no. Understood?”

He waits for Neil’s nod to continue, “That all being said, I do not want to move away.”

For a few reasons.

Neil. Aaron. Kevin. Renee. Robin. Bee.

Almost everyone Andrew wants to keep in his life will be staying in South Carolina at least for the following years, and so there is no reason for him to move so far away for a sport he does not really care all that much about. Andrew has no shame in admitting that, despite his own drive to make something out of his name, a big part of his decision to engage in professional Exy after college is the fat stack of money most teams are willing to pay him to play. That, and the fact that Kevin and Neil want him at Court with them.

Again: very few reasons. Andrew Minyard is, likewise, a man of very few wishes.

“You don’t want Boston?” Neil asks at last, tracing the edge of the files with a loosely concealed pensive expression.

Andrew shakes his head, briefly uncrossing his arms to push the files in Neil’s direction. “Do with them what you will, but I will not sign with the Boston Crusaders.”

Neil hums in understatement before skimming through a few of the articles, a lot less enthusiastic about it now that Andrew has confirmed his rejection of them. Neil’s fingers trail over the plane ticket curiously, weighing it on his hand, and he asks: “Will you go alone?”

“I will not go. I have no interest in such an event.”

A shallow frown births itself in the crease between Neil’s eyebrows, and Andrew instinctively holds out a thumb to smooth it over. Neil headbutts his thumb almost playfully before pointing out, “I might be wrong about this, but I think the Stingrays will be attending this event.” He pauses, offering Andrew an all-knowing smile. “Kevin told me they wanted new additions.”

Andrew presses his lips into a thin line. “And?”

“And nothing,” Neil slowly puts down. “Do with that what you will.”

“Abram.”

“I am not saying anything,” he insists, folding the plane ticket back into the folder as if he hadn’t even touched it in the first place. Neil spins around on his chair to face Andrew, his knees digging against the side of Andrew’s leg, and the grin he sends his way is pure mischief. “It was just an observation.”

“Uncalled for,” Andrew points out, eyeing him suspiciously.

“To you, maybe,” Neil hums, mirroring Andrew’s crossed arms. “We have established already that I don’t speak only when you want me to.”

Andrew scoffs, but doesn’t disagree.

And, really: _no_. No. There is no way Neil thinks he is going to get him to take a plane — the one thing Andrew fears — to _Boston_ of all cities because Kevin's team will be there.

No. Absolutely not.

Andrew is not going. It isn’t worth the aggravation.

Which is to say, of course, that he goes. And not only does he go, Andrew also plans it so that he can book a room in the same hotel Kevin's team is staying, courtesy of the very man that gave him the information of where that would be.

Between winning a home game, driving Neil and Robin to night practice and enduring intensive therapy with Aaron, Andrew finds himself in a hotel room a week later, locking the door behind him with a soft thud before dropping his bag to the floor. Maybe it is the stress of the plane ride, the built-up anger of therapy, or a weird mix of every single one of Andrew’s issues, but to no one's surprise, he _drops_ the moment the door to his hotel room is closed behind him, the fragile complexion of his mental health crumbling as he finds himself able to process the past few days in solitude.

It is in moments like these, reliving memories of last Wednesday with his back to the door and his feet forcefully dug onto the carpet, that Andrew questions himself if therapy is even worth the emotional motion sickness it leaves behind.

The thing is — logically, he always knew Tilda was a bad mother. He always knew that.

But Aaron kept most of the details to himself, and he started to mention the extent of the abuse he'd gone through with her only recently, shared pieces of a terrible, terrible life that made Andrew feel no sympathy for her death whatsoever as they were dissected under Betsy Dobson’s powerful yet gentle gaze, unpeeling the trauma layer by layer.

However, it is fair to say that even Andrew was a bit surprised when, in their last session together before Andrew’s flight, Aaron recounted being nine years old and almost drowning in a bathtub while Tilda — may she rest in the Devil’s piss — held his head underwater before pulling it back last minute, as if suddenly sobering up to the thought of killing her own child.

It's not the violence or sheer darkness of it that ruffles Andrew. That he knows — that he understands.

It's the fact that Aaron could have died.

He could have died. He could have died.

What, then — what would be of Andrew?

If it wasn't for Tilda's conscience catching up to her at the last minute, Aaron Minyard could have drowned to death at nine years old, forever unknowing of Andrew's existence. A child stuck in time, never able to grow up, buried somewhere under a tomb that would have been bigger than him, if he looked like Andrew did as a child at all. Gone, slipped out of existence just like that — dead before Andrew ever knew he existed.

A ghost of the past, Aaron would have been. A child gone wrong. Just another son of statistics. How many kids drown in bathtubs every year? They wouldn’t have traced it back to Tilda. She’d get away with it unscathed.

The thought cuts through him so violently Andrew can’t do more than step out of his jeans, turn off all the lights and slip into bed, falling back into apathy in the safe space of a locked, dark hotel room.

How long does he lie there for, Andrew quietly wonders to himself as he stares into the dark, back firmly pressed against the wall and armbands tight around his wrists.

Is it hours? Minutes? Seconds?

He does not know. What Andrew knows is that he should call Bee, or call Neil to call Bee, but it's too much effort — to just reach for the phone is too much effort. At sudden Andrew is impotent; a dead weight; a drowned corpse at the bottom of a bathtub, and the growing urge under his skin is enveloped by a thick paralysis, the weight of it leaving a bitter aftertaste to his mouth and a lingering misery to his limbs, those of which refuse to move. _Stay,_ his muscles demand, and Andrew, child that he is, stays.

He thinks _I should probably pick up the_ _phone_ when it rings for ten minutes straight.

He doesn't pick up.

He thinks _Kevin is just next door_. _I should call him._

He doesn’t call.

Andrew curls into himself almost violently, his spine turning into soft wax as he shields himself like a frightened child, keeping the world away with a blanket around his shoulders and a furious grip to his sheets. Forcefully, he closes his eyes, willing the numbness of sleep to come — it does not. Not for a long time.

He wakes up — which is to say, he gives up on trying to sleep at all — with a hollow knock on the door. Logically, Andrew knows it has to be Kevin, but his deep rooted paranoia can't move past the idea that it's _danger_ and someone who will take advantage of his state to—

“Andrew?” Kevin’s voice gently calls from the other side of the door, and Andrew’s thoughts come to a startled halt. “Neil asked me to check in on you.”

Andrew doesn’t answer. Can’t. His throat is a desert.

Kevin continues as if he already expected it, as if he knew, a year before that it happened, that Andrew would repay his words in silence. “My room is just next door, if you need anything. I’ve got a single.” He taps his fingers against the door quietly, a fidgety habit. “I’ll pack you dinner. Let me know when you want it.”

And then footsteps.

And then he's gone.

Andrew buries his face into the unpleasantly sterilized white pillow and prompts himself into falling asleep once again, only slightly comforted that Kevin would be handling whatever consequence there was of his radio silence in regards to Neil.

This time he sleeps, but it’s an awful, barely-there half an hour that, despite not being nightmare-ridden like it used to be, does not do anything to ease the tired edge of Andrew’s shoulders, which are simultaneously too tense and too relaxed to let him lie down properly. He needs — something, someone to ground him; a silence to listen to that is not his own.

So he calls Kevin. It takes him a handful of minutes to work up the will to do it, and when he finally gets it, he barely says anything — all Andrew does is breathe a shaky " _Come_ " into the silence of his room and slam the phone back in its place.

Minutes later, Kevin comes. Andrew should not be surprised that he does, but he still is when he drags himself out of bed and into sweatpants to open the door, not waiting for Kevin to walk in before he curls under the comforter once more, his back pressed to the wall and his eyes following Kevin’s every move intently as he closes the door behind him, a tall, dark blur Andrew can only know it’s him by how light and careful his footsteps are. Kevin doesn't seem to mind the dark room all that much as he maneuvers himself around Andrew’s luggage with ease and grace, gently taking off his coat and folding it on top of the desk next to the window. There is a backpack hanging from his elbow.

He runs a hand through his hair absentmindedly as he takes in Andrew’s state. His breath is calm and stable; chest rising and falling; and Andrew unconsciously follows its rhythm. For a second, they’re just breathing — twin pairs of lungs, breathing in and out, following a silent melody. Andrew swallows his pride back.

Kevin carefully settles himself on the rocking chair beside the bed, not quite within arm’s reach but still close enough that Andrew could roll around and touch him if he wanted to. The backpack disappears, and Andrew assumes it is settled by Kevin’s feet, lost in the dark of the room. As it was, his position sent a message: he would not reach for Andrew first, which was a relief in and out of itself, for reasons Andrew doesn’t have the mind to dissect at the moment.

Neither say anything for a while. Andrew watches, as if in a trance, as Kevin rocks the chair to and fro in a soothing manner, the hypnotizing come-and-go of it taking up the space in Andrew’s brain that had been previously occupied by paranoia, emptying him out of obsessive thoughts one rock at a time. Slowly, so slowly, Andrew finds it in himself to roll a bit closer to him, back leaving the wall tentatively.

It takes Kevin a few minutes to notice, too engrossed in his own thoughts to notice Andrew’s barely-there-at-all beckoning, but when he does, he reaches down into the backpack for a short second before offering Andrew a water bottle. “Water?” he asks, so redundant Andrew would have poked fun of him for it under better circumstances.

Andrew doesn’t reply, but he takes the water bottle all the same, avoiding the brush of his fingers against Kevin’s as he does so and emptying it out in record time soon after. When he gives it back, Kevin is smiling that sure, pleased smile of his, and Andrew wants both for it to disappear and for it to never leave his face again.

“Do you want me to talk?” Kevin hums, tapping his foot against the ground as the rocking comes to a halt. “Just give me a topic.”

Andrew stares at him for a second before croaking out, after what felt like an eternity of silence, “Not Exy.”

This time Kevin doesn’t smile — instead, he _laughs_. The sound of it, what had once been unfamiliar and odd, makes Andrew feel realer, more present in the moment than he had been up until now. It was a good sign, or so Betsy would tell him.

“Not Exy,” he reassures Andrew in return.

“Talk.”

And talk he does.

At some point Andrew is sure he's just repeating excerpts of documentaries from memory between little bits of prose and poetry that Andrew doesn’t recognize, never heard of before; all in that particular lively voice of his, as if a professor giving a lecture on the romances. Kevin gets so invested every time he has a topic to talk about, no matter what it is — he gestures and points and looks like he would start pacing around the room if Andrew didn't need him to stay where he was and rock the chair gently.

He doesn't realize when, eventually, Andrew reaches out a hand from under his pillows to grasp at the back of the chair, tentatively rocking him back and forth. The movement under his palms, though minimum, is repetitive enough to be soothing.

And it's odd, really, how Kevin just lets Andrew do it without a pause: how he lets Andrew rock him to and fro like a baby, like a child, and does not resume his talking even once, because he knows — from experience — that Andrew finds comfort in being the provider instead of the provided for, the hammer instead of the nail, the caretaker instead of the ward. Taking care of someone — of _Kevin —_ , Andrew thinks, is soothing. It is, perhaps, the only way Andrew will ever let himself be taken care of: on the grounds that it is reciprocal, Andrew allows it to happen.

Tending is always soothing. He felt the happiest in foster care when he was able to tend to the other, smaller kids. Even at such a young age, he did not like feeling small, or little; he had always wanted to protect more than he wanted to be protected.

The reason behind it might also be the way Kevin always talks with the enthusiasm of someone who just saw the ocean for the first time, and is excited to tell the details — the irresistible vulnerability of him that prompts Andrew into wanting to keep him close, in his line of sight, so that nothing ever takes Kevin, and all of his clumsy faith, away. Maybe every new breath is a surprise to him, and he's so happy to have it that he almost forgets to take it before moving to another topic.

 _May you bury me,_ Kevin had told him only once, long before they were three. An Arabic saying, Andrew came to learn years down the line. _May you live longer than me, and in doing so, sparing me the pain of having to bury you._

It was a term used by mothers who were so used to losing their young in the war — a last cry, a plea, the promise of _if you go, I'll be close behind. I'll be right by you._ It's hard to think of a world where Kevin doesn't exist but Andrew does. There is a disconnect between those two hypotheses; almost as if one could not exist without the other.

Andrew knows he is not supposed to have this. He rocks the chair anyways.

Kevin stops talking abruptly when he realizes Andrew's eyes were now clinging to his frame, presumably a lot less foggy than they were before. “Is there something you need?” Kevin asks, distributing his weight to his legs so that Andrew could set the speed of the rocking. He kept it gentle — Andrew thought it to be soothing.

Andrew thinks for a second. The answer _nothing_ sits heavy on the tip of his tongue, but that's okay for tonight.

Live and let live, for now, with his self destructive tendencies.

He sits up with a wince, never truly unclasping his hand from the back of Kevin’s chair, before replying, “A shower.”

“And dinner?”

Andrew glares at him. Unapologetically, Kevin points out: “You knew very well that I would pester you when you asked me to come.”

It's every inch true, but it does not make him any less infuriating for pointing it out.

Whatever. _Whatever._

He slides out of the bed easily, stretching out the tense muscle that sat under too-hot fair skin. It takes Andrew only a few brief steps to gather a new set of clean clothes and a towel, the darkness of the bedroom no less comforting as Andrew cuts through it. He turns on the lights just so Kevin could see his face as he glares from the bathroom door, leaning his hand against the handle. “Pest,” he calls, making Kevin’s attention turn to him on instinct, “stay.”

A simple command; maybe even a request. _Stay._ Like it was that easy.

Kevin half-smiles a subdued toothy grin, but doesn't answer.

Andrew takes his time with his shower, and is rewarded with the fact that Kevin is still there when he comes back. He is there, and he doesn’t leave even when Andrew eats leftovers from the dinner offered at the hotel on top of the bed, and doesn't offer or share any of it. Even when Andrew sinks back into the bed and puts on a stupid movie on the TV that he _knows_ Kevin doesn't care for. Even when Andrew ignores him for the sake of staring at the ridiculously virtuous — but not any more good looking than Kevin, in Andrew’s opinion — main character of the movie, whose name Andrew doesn’t even care enough to learn. Even when Andrew is annoying; even when Andrew is an asshole; even when all he can do is complain.

It is only when the movie ends and the leftovers are in the trash that Andrew's head is clear enough for him to voice out, “I want you to stay here tonight.”

Another request disguised as a command. Andrew only speaks with purpose, but he is always more than ready to take a no for an answer when it comes to things like these.

Kevin's eyebrows furrow delicately. “I don’t see why you would find that comforting, but okay. I will.”

Andrew does not dignify that with a reply other than, “Don’t be stupid,” but has the decency to briefly pause before asking, “Your teammates?”

He shrugs. “I don’t have anything to do, if that is what you’re asking. Jean’s room is down the hall.”

It is very much what Andrew is asking.

It also comes as no surprise, mostly, that Jean and Kevin aren't sharing a room. Andrew has seen them in their apartment — years away from the Nest and each other have made both of them value privacy over the still-lingering codependency of their relationship, the pair of them preferring to be tucked away alone in their own rooms, instead. It's something Kevin talked about with Betsy in one of their shared sessions, years ago, that still bothered him to this day: sleeping alone makes him paranoid, but there were days where seeing a body across the room made him feel right back in the Nest, because only Riko was ever this close to him when he was asleep. Kevin locks his bedroom door to sleep now, and hates being watched in his sleep; says it reminds him too much of Riko.

Andrew taps his fingers against the duvet in thought. “Will you be sane,” he asks, “sleeping here?”

Kevin considers it for a moment. Back in Charleston, he explicitly banned Neil and Andrew from staying in his room while he was asleep — it's very likely that this will be a problem, in one way or another. “Yes,” comes the eventual answer, Kevin’s hands scratching at his chin in thought. “Yes, I think so. It's okay if the other person is sleeping, I just don't like it if they're… Staring.”

Silence falls upon them; a grieving sound, rich only in its emptiness. Andrew purses his lips, fighting back the tight set of his jaw as he puts forward, “I am supposing he did that to you a lot."

“Like he wanted to do something, yes.” Kevin scrunches up his nose in distaste. “It freaked me out.”

The idea of Kevin, vulnerable and asleep, in a room with Riko Moriyama makes something dark churn at the back of Andrew's gut. Not for the first time, it’s hard to fight back the thought that he wishes he were the one who put that bullet through Riko’s head.

“I will not stare,” he tells Kevin, at last. A promise.

“Okay. And I won’t touch.”

The small bits of peace that they make over the years, Andrew distantly considers — and the mending bones they leave behind.

“Okay,” Andrew replies.

They watch TV mindlessly for the rest of the night, as if what they were about to do was a normal thing they did all the time — sleep together, share a bed, settle together at night with nothing but each other to press up against. Andrew liked the familiarity of it: Kevin did not seem to think of it as a big deal, and so it was not. At some point between switching channels and terrible sitcom reruns, he offers Kevin space to climb beside him on the bed, making them two as opposite to Andrew’s usual one. They don’t touch — Andrew doesn’t know if he can handle it when Kevin is a furnace by his side, the heat emanating from him almost a beckoning on its own —, but Andrew allows his mind to wander; lets himself think about how it would feel, for even one moment, to have Kevin’s shoulder dig against his side, all warm skin and twitching muscle.

It is, of course, easier said than done to not stare when Kevin falls asleep by his side: his face looks the most relaxed it has been in years, long eyelashes fanning over tanned skin and full lips pursed, childlike in their rest.

But had Andrew promised, see, and he is a man of his word: he would honor his part of the deal, if it killed him.

All that he does is offer Kevin a quick once over — checking for discomfort — and turn off the lights, fitting himself on the other end of the bed and staring instead at the space between them, sheets rumpled in the shape of both of their bodies as if in a domestic sanctuary. It takes Andrew more than a hundred sheep to finally fall prey to sleep, his brain too busy with its own wants and its own horrors to allow him a peaceful trip, but it comes to him, eventually — in a snore, in a thought, in a dream where life is always like this and no harm comes from the body sleeping next to him.

Neil had made him softer, clearly. Damn him. _Damn_ him.

Kevin abruptly jerks awake three times in the middle of the night, and so Andrew abruptly jerks awake three times in the middle of the night. The first time Kevin whines "sorry" and goes back to sleep; the second time he whimpers and goes back to sleep; the third time Andrew has had enough of the interruptions and turns on the lamp by his bedside, eyeing Kevin’s limp form with a suspicious glint.

“You said this would be okay,” Andrew murmurs matter-of-factly.

He switches onto his side to stare at Andrew, hair matted from the pillows and softer than Andrew ever remembers him being. “And it is okay with you,” Kevin softly concedes, even if his eyebags are purpler than violet hour itself.

“The problem is not me.” Andrew purses his lips, leaning against the headboard. Kevin remains in bed, a stray lock of black hair almost touching Andrew’s hip. “The problem is that there is another body on the bed.”

Kevin stays quiet for a second, mulling it over, and it is so quiet, and so soothing — the irresistible tug of sleep has never been as alluring as it is now, with the sound of Kevin’s breath and the image of him, sleepy and soft, at the other side of a bed Andrew also sleeps on. “It's not that,” he limits himself to explaining, voice barely above a whisper. “It's that in the dark I can't see if it's you. Logically, in my brain, I know it is, but when I can only see your silhouette my brain registers it as an unknown body in my bed.”

“Do you need to go back to your room?” Andrew asks, because his comfort should not be at the expense of Kevin’s.

“No,” comes his almost immediate response, “I want to stay if you still want me to.”

“Stay.”

“Okay.”

Andrew reaches out to turn off the lamp, sliding into the bed once more and shuffling to his side so he could be face to face with Kevin, whose eyes had never left him. There is a big distance between them — big enough for another pillow, big enough for another country, big enough for Andrew to want to swim across it and meet Kevin halfway — that Andrew cares to keep, even if he is physically incapable of pulling his eyes away from Kevin’s, the darkness of the room making the usual light green turn mossy; earthy; grounding.

It’s so — quietly intimate. Kevin doesn’t say anything, and so doesn’t Andrew: all they do is stare, breaths touching but never mingling, sharing the space of a bed that feels like an entire world away from the one that they know. Andrew stares his fill in case it is the last time that they would ever be exactly like this, softened by the dark of the night in a way they had never been before. Kevin’s eyes are droopy and slow, and Andrew realizes, for the second time in his life, that he is in love.

The admission startles him so much that, for once, Andrew struggles to keep Kevin’s gaze. It is too late to take it back now — Andrew had already allowed him past his defenses, and there was nothing he could do but watch. It was the most welcoming loss of control Andrew had ever seen in his life, and he hated it in the same abundant way that he desperately clung to it.

“Hey,” Kevin calls under his breath, the word nothing but a dainty whisper Andrew wishes he would press to his mouth instead of his own. Slowly, Kevin pulls out a hand from under the comforter, offering it to the empty space between him and Andrew like a white flag; the peace calling to a war that lasted them a lifetime, and perhaps even more. “I need to know it’s you in some way,” he feebly explains.

Andrew quietly considers the hand for a moment, almost as if it was his first time seeing a hand in his life and he did not quite know what to do with it, before just as slowly putting out two of his fingers for Kevin to curl his palm around, the same way he’d done to younger children in foster homes before. Kevin complies, gently so, and murmurs a goodnight before fully closing his eyes, leaving Andrew with no skin to study about. When his grip tightens around Andrew’s fingers ever so lightly, a quiet plea to not let go, Andrew finds strength from God knows where so as to not stare neither at Kevin nor at their joined hands.

He wills himself to go back to sleep, because there is nothing else to do. Because if he did not do it now, he wouldn’t ever do it again, and he would spend the rest of the night thinking of how close him and Kevin were to holding hands in their sleep, and that — that would not be good.

It feels like a blink when Andrew wakes up once more, slow and hazy with the early morning. It takes him a few minutes of blearily blinking through existence to be aware of his surroundings, the heavy taste of sleep still weighing down his tongue and his fingers warm and tucked away, nestled close to Kevin’s chest but too far from touching it. Their hands have shifted through the night, Andrew groggily considers, wiggling his fingers in the dark and feeling Kevin’s palm tighten around them, now all of them minus his thumb tucked under Kevin’s hand. A childish comfort, surely, but it had honored its part of the deal by making them children once more — aren’t they quite the pair? Andrew with his bad heart and Kevin with his bad head: twin catastrophes, so old they become young again, though together they can make something worthwhile.

 _The scene of the crime,_ Andrew had called his childhood. He supposes the superhumanly comfort he gets from Kevin is the remaining evidence. Andrew is not stupid enough to think that the not-really-there handholding was enough to get Kevin through the night, but if he woke up in a panic, it wasn't as abrupt as the first three times, and Andrew, likewise, did not notice it.

He doesn't wiggle his fingers out of Kevin's hold or makes any move to open his eyes; deep down, Andrew knows he wouldn't be able to stop himself from staring if he did, and he had a promise to keep.

It’s only when he shifts into a new position that he realizes that they made it through the night, and it was… Good. Comfortable. Familiar. As if they had done this many times before, as if this wasn't their first time sharing a bed. Andrew wonders if Kevin ever shared a bed with anyone before, alone and without Riko in the room, and finds it unlikely: Thea never spent the night when they were dating, and there hasn’t been anyone since.

A first, then. Andrew hopes — how ironic — that he passed the test.

Slow and carefully, he readjusts their hands so that Kevin's right hand is tucked under his palm, warmed and protected. It’s an awkward fit, because Kevin’s hands are inevitably bigger, but Andrew makes do, covering his knuckles with the hollow of his palm and dragging his fingertips down the slope of Kevin’s wrist. He doesn’t intertwine them because — because Andrew thinks it might be too much, and his hand would spasm away from it as if burnt, the wanting of it too much to bear. Andrew thinks that if he fully takes Kevin’s hand in his, he will never be able to let go again, much to his dismay.

He can't do so much as breathe on Kevin's left hand without waking him up, so Andrew leaves it be, and feels it more than he sees it when Kevin grasps for his hand in his sleep. He opens his eyes ever so slightly as Kevin’s left hand finds Andrew's and tucks itself under the one already in his hold, almost as if in a praying position, the both of them now covered by Andrew's palm. _Protected_ , Andrew corrects himself before he closes his eyes again, if only because this could count as staring.

A man who did not feel so much for Kevin Day would have perhaps taken this task easily, but Andrew is no such thing. Not staring at Kevin is a conscious effort. Enveloped by the canopy of silence of his hotel room, Andrew lets his mind wander, too early in the morning for him to do anything but zone out and hope for sleep to come back to him again.

Andrew knows, logically, that there is no way this could be easy to Kevin. This being — _them_. The three of them. Kevin, Neil and Andrew: a trio.

Kevin's concept of romantic relationships had been Raven branded and extremely unhealthy long before Andrew and Neil met him; there is no doubt that, if he says yes, the transition will be difficult, if only because the two of them will be so different from what Kevin knows, and the people that had — or hadn’t — loved him before.

It's okay, he shushes himself. Andrew has been there before, and he's taught Neil well — if it's a yes, they'll be good to Kevin. They'll take care of him. Andrew knows it as well as he knows the palm of his own hand, as well as he knows the roof of Neil’s mouth, as well as he knows the scars on Kevin’s hand. He won’t let the ghosts eat Kevin alive; he’ll fight them away, disperse them like fog, hold Kevin so tightly to himself that they will be at risk of merging together into one huge mess of skin and muscle. Andrew will do the possible and the impossible: he will write it into reality every day until his hand breaks, and assure them — the three of them — that they would find their place, eventually, because they always do.

It's too early to wake Kevin up, so Andrew curls his fingers over Kevin’s wrist and lulls himself into unconsciousness once more, dragging his fingertips up and down the thin skin in a self-soothing manner, more for himself than it is for Kevin. Andrew Minyard has no tenderness to give to himself, but Kevin is an entirely different story. He closes his eyes tightly, letting his fingers hover over the scars he knows too well for his liking.

When he wakes up again, the man in question is slowly — so slowly — blinking his eyes open. Spring-green, Andrew thought, looked rather different in the dark. He closes his eyes again. “Awake before your alarm?” Andrew murmurs to no one in particular.

Kevin yawns, a long and deep sound, before replying, almost unintelligible, “Didn’ set ‘ne up.”

Andrew hums. Their hands have not moved. Kevin basks in his own sleep-fresh mentality before lightly tapping his finger upwards, against the roof that has been made of Andrew’s palm. “You can look,” he says, and Andrew does not know how to tell him that he is afraid to, so he does not. He looks.

Meeting Kevin's stare is a bit hard, if only because his eyes are too wide and too green. Andrew meets it anyway. Kevin offers him a small smile, satiated and pleased, before asking, “Are you well?”

“Yes.” He bites his tongue. “Are you?”

“Yes.”

Andrew nods, but Kevin continues, “Thank you. For this, I mean. I know it’s hard for you, and I’m s—”

“Don’t apologize.”

He blinks in surprise, apology coming to an abrupt halt. “Okay.”

But Kevin can't really stay quiet once given the opportunity to talk. He told Betsy that, anyways — he's never been allowed to talk before, so he's still bad at measuring his words when he has permission to ramble. Not that Andrew gave it to him, but he supposes it goes implied. “Still,” he hums. “No one has ever…” Kevin motions between them, bringing their hands up and down. Against all common sense, Andrew threads their fingers together, if only so they don’t slip away with the motion. “You know, Andrew. Don’t make me sound pathetic. You know no one ever— cared about a no from me before.”

And Andrew knows, and he hates that he does: he hates to be reminded of the Nest. He hates to be reminded of Kevin’s inability to say no to Riko or Tetsuji; hates every new bit of information he gets about that hell place, its hell people, and the things they’d done to Kevin. He hates to know Riko stared at, touched, hurt, manipulated, did of Kevin what he wanted to do because he knew Kevin couldn't say no. He hates to have been the first person to ever give Kevin a choice, because he really shouldn't have been the first.

“Kevin.”

Kevin’s gaze falls to him as if he had just been pulled out of his thoughts. “What?”

“Yes or no?” Andrew asks.

“To what?”

Andrew slowly inches towards Kevin's side, moving carefully until his chest was just in front of Kevin’s face and his lips were close to his forehead. Not touching; not really doing anything; but Kevin understands it, and his voice comes out a bit strained when he replies, "Yes."

 _A kiss on the forehead eases worry_ , Neil had told him once, a cheap bargain for when he wanted a kiss but did not want to ask for it.

Andrew kisses Kevin's forehead, letting his lips linger.

The sound that leaves Kevin's mouth is atrociously soft, as heartbreaking as it is immediate. “ _Kevin_ ,” Andrew forcefully says, his mouth still pressed to the skin of Kevin’s forehead because he does not know how to pull away. There is a scar there that is just above his eyebrow, a small dent he thinks Kevin got during one of his earliest Exy matches, and Andrew absentmindedly drags his lips over it, earning another surprised sound from the man in front of him. “Kevin.”

“Sorry,” he replies, tone low and absent.

“Don't."

“I—” Kevin starts, rather confused, “—don’t know what else to do.”

He frowns from where Kevin can't see it, due both to the dark and to their position. “You,” Andrew tells him, “should always have a choice.”

Kevin hums in agreement. “I know that now.”

“Do you?”

“I try to.”

Andrew is not and has never been one for sympathy, but the years have softened him, clearly; or maybe Kevin has, and things have always been like this. “Come here,” he says at last, not quite knowing what he wants from Kevin aside from his closeness.

Tentatively, Kevin pushes closer and closer to him after a suspended moment of hesitation, until his hair tickles Andrew’s neck and his nose knocks against Andrew’s chest, not reaching out for him but not pulling away either. Physical affection is quite alike to dancing — it is never elegant at first try, but they make it work. Andrew adjusts their position to rest his chin against the top of Kevin’s head, leaning a careful, undemanding hand over his nape. They don’t touch much until Kevin finally relaxes, nestling his forehead on Andrew’s chest and gently nuzzling against his sleeping shirt, which prompts Andrew to lightly trail his other hand up and down Kevin’s side the same way he’d do to Neil’s if he had a rough day. Compulsive soothing, Andrew would call it.

“The only person I ever did this with is Jean,” Kevin hums to the hollow of Andrew’s chest, a quiet sound from the back of his throat, “and we were both hurt, mostly, so it didn’t count.”

Andrew presses his lips together firmly, tightening his hold against Kevin’s nape and bringing his face closer to his chest. “You’re a wreck,” is all that he says, though something in him aches all the same.

“I know,” he replies.

Andrew allows himself to press the hand that is not on Kevin’s nape to the small of his back, holding his spine up and straight so that he can curl into Andrew without disappearing into himself in the process. Isn’t that what Andrew is most afraid of, these days — that Kevin will disappear?

They are silent in their comfort, breathing into the skin they were never brave enough to touch before. Kevin’s hair is soft, pliant under Andrew’s chin, and his body is warm against Andrew’s palms: a living, fluttery thing that reminded Andrew of his duty to take care of it every day.

“I have a team breakfast to attend,” Kevin eventually murmurs into his shirt, but does not show any intention to pull away.

“Do you want to go?” Andrew roughly draws out.

Kevin hums lightly, tipping his head towards the vibration of Andrew's chest and throat and gently pressing up to it. In return, Andrew reaches for Kevin’s wrist and moves it so that Kevin’s palm meets his clothed shoulder. Kevin does not try to pull it away or slide it down Andrew’s arm, but he does delicately knead the muscle with his fingers, a dainty press that has Andrew’s shoulders tensing up on instinct before relaxing entirely.

They were both men who had enough problems with their own bodies to last them an eternity, but stitched together like this, it’s almost like Andrew could kiss out every bruise, every awful word and cruel self-perception — it’s almost like Andrew could slash his own chest with a knife and let Kevin crawl right into it, where no one could never lay a hand on him again because Andrew would not allow it.

“I do want to go,” Kevin replies after a while, his thumb dragging up and down Andrew’s shoulders lazily. “I like them. I like— River. And Yonah. And Sidney. And Daniel.”

Andrew knows these people, and it is despicable that he does. “I will go with you,” he says, then adds, “okay?”

“Okay.”

But they don’t go right away. Andrew knew how hard it would be to let go of Kevin once he had him, and he is no less certain now.

When they reach into the elevator twenty minutes later with their faces still puffy from sleep, Andrew has to pointedly look away from Kevin, who looks just like he spent the entire night pressed against Andrew’s side, fallen out of Andrew’s bed and into reality with his hair matted and his face soft; pleased; relaxed. It was a hard sight to take in, of course, with the knowledge that Kevin had _indeed_ spent the night pressed against Andrew’s side, and the thought of it kills him.

Anyways.

After they reach the hotel's restaurant, Andrew's first impression of the South Carolina Stingrays is that there are too many of them, and that he does not like it.

No one mentions Andrew as he takes a seat beside Kevin at the far end of the table, the lot of them too busy engaging in conversation within their group to point out the clear sore thumb in their breakfast table. Even Moreau, whose level of pleasantness is in the negatives, is quietly talking to the captain, sparing Andrew no more than a glance before telling Kevin to hurry up if he wants to get an omelette. Kevin hums something back to him that Andrew doesn't care to listen to and settles in front of River Yazzie, who had a teasing smile just sharp enough to have Andrew tensing up slightly on his chair, hands clutching the armrest.

Kevin had told him he liked River. Still — better safe than sorry.

“If it isn’t the queen,” River hums, their hair pulled into two long ponytails on each side of their head. “Sidney was just saying that you must have drowned in the toilet.”

Kevin rolls his eyes, but doesn't tense up or bother to reply with anything but a quick huff of what could be laughter. Sidney Morales is on the ever growing list of female Exy players Robin finds attractive due to her traditionally masculine clothing and haircut. Andrew has no idea how Kevin ended up a somewhat friend of hers, and he does not know enough about the woman to come to a conclusion of how that happened.

He thinks he can do with the Stingrays’ clear dismissal of his presence until River, who Andrew supposes is the mouth of the group, points it out by saying, “Kevin, when you said you were bringing a Fox to the table, I thought you meant your Jean from another team. Your man.”

Slowly chewing on a painfully plain and stale piece of toast, Kevin frowns. “My man?”

Too early for sarcasm, it seems. Andrew glares holes into the side of Kevin's head.

River’s smile gentles. “The one from the talk show.”

“Oh,” on the other hand, Kevin’s frown deepens. “Neil.”

“The very one.”

Kevin scrunches up his nose in offense. “Neither Neil nor Jean are mine,” he replies, “I’ve told you that already.”

They gently shake their head. “And I told you that I don't buy it. Perhaps you don't see it. Why don't you ask around?”

Andrew is done both with listening to this conversation and watching Kevin miserably munch on a plain piece of toast. He grabs the small jam container from his own plate and places it on Kevin's with a scowl, stealing his attention before he could bite back at River’s teases. It’s worse, though, because the sudden movement brings River’s attention onto him, and Andrew — Andrew does not want to break someone’s nose today, especially knowing how hard it is for Kevin to make friends at all.

When they next speak, though, it’s not directed at Andrew; they turn to Kevin as if Andrew hadn’t been there at all, and say, “A _third_ white man in the mix. Kevin, you’re a heartbreaker with very questionable taste.”

Kevin, for one, scoffs. “You and I know very well that that is not true,” he tells them, a new understanding in River’s eyes that Andrew does not like one bit, if only because he does not know what they are talking about. “River, this is Andrew.” Kevin motions towards Andrew. “Andrew, this is River.” He mirrors the movement to River’s direction.

Neither acknowledge the other outside of a general glace in their direction. “As much as this interaction is thrilling to me, we still have to go over yesterday’s practice,” Kevin says, cutting the subject short.

River laughs, then, a sound that betrays their fondness. “I'm all ears, Day,” they hum. “Give me the lecture.”

And the lecture Kevin gives.

Andrew watches from the front row as Kevin’s passionate discourse gathers attention from the other sides of the table, a handful of fellow players turning to stare at him in interest as Kevin points out the pros and cons of their strategy for their first game of the season, two weeks away from now. What he supposes is Kevin’s inner circle — really, _four_ friends is more than anyone ever expected from him — look at him curiously, the names Andrew heard before appearing on his mind one by one as they turn to Kevin. Yonah, Sidney, Daniel; people Andrew doesn’t know, but will have to tolerate for Kevin’s sake.

And they’re... Decent enough. Andrew doesn't trust them with Kevin, but he can see why he likes them in the first place, so they have to do, for now. In the big scheme of things, these people are irrelevant — Andrew forgets about their existence as soon as he dives into his own breakfast, and the minutes go fast after that.

His reluctant approval of them does not mean that Andrew wants to spend any more time with them than he absolutely needs to, though, and he all but drags Kevin away from the elevator by the hem of his shirt when the door opens on their way back to Andrew’s room, leaving the rest of the Stingrays to go do whatever as long as it does not include taking Kevin away from him. Andrew opens the door with his magnetic card single-handedly, clutching Kevin’s shirt with the other, and only lets go once they are both inside, the door locked behind them.

Kevin settles on the bed again lazily, kicking his shoes off and burying himself under the covers as if he was ready to go back to sleep. Andrew stares at him for one, two, three seconds before doing the same, turning on the television on his way to the bed but keeping his distance this time, back against the headboard and half of his body covered. Andrew switches through the channels easily, Kevin’s eyes peeking at the screen from under the blanket, and it’s such a small world — they are two in a world alone, but they are three in their essence. If Neil was there, he’d get tired of Andrew’s fickle switching and take the remote away from him to choose something of his own, and Andrew would let him. If Neil was there, he’d run a hand through Kevin’s hair or down his neck, and Andrew would watch them. If they were three, there would be nothing Andrew wouldn’t do to keep them as such.

Television is always bad this early in the morning, but Andrew lets it play anyway, settling on a crime show neither care much for in the first place. Rather unwillingly, Kevin pays attention to it, clutching the hem of his blanket and frowning every now and then.

An entire lifetime made up of three episodes later, Kevin quietly calls, “Andrew.”

Andrew glances at him briefly before replying, “That would be me.”

“I think,” Kevin starts, his eyes trained away from Andrew, “that I lean on you too much. I don’t mean to. It’s not fair to you.”

And isn't it silly, how Kevin says it like it's his most shameful crime — as if Andrew hasn't spent the last few months itching to be the person Kevin leans on, the Kevin-less void in his chest a rupture on his sternum that offers no sight of its bottom. The weight of Kevin has never been oppressive: it isn’t just accepted as much as it is wanted, preferred.

If anything, Andrew misses it.

“How very Christian of you to think I wouldn't have called it quits if I thought you were taking too much,” Andrew answers, not offering Kevin even a glance as he keeps his eyes to the television.

Kevin is silent for a second. “Still. I don't want you to feel like you owe me anything.”

“I don’t.”

“Then why?”

Andrew finally peels his gaze away from the television, giving Kevin an once over. “Why, what?”

He reaches for the remote in Andrew’s hand, gently uncurling his fingers from around it and turning the television off. Silence fills up the room like a leaking faucet, flooding Andrew with its emptiness, and he lets it slide through him as he watches Kevin pull himself upwards and lean his back against the headboard, their shoulders this close to brushing.

“Why do you bother with me,” Kevin starts, “when you know you don’t want me?”

And Andrew knows — he _knows_ Kevin does not mean it like that. God, he knows better than anyone else that Kevin does not mean it like that, but it still carves a hollow in his stomach with its untruthfulness. “I never said that,” Andrew tells him through grinded teeth.

“You did say that.”

“I haven’t.”

“You have.”

“When have I said I don't want you?”

Andrew’s reply startles Kevin into an abrupt silence, and the pause following it is longer than it should be. “What I meant,” he slowly puts down, now fully refusing to meet Andrew’s gaze, “is that you have said before that I am a bother to you. Not,” Kevin stammers, “not that you don’t want me.”

Oh.

_Oh._

“Andrew,” Kevin repeats, an underlying surprise to it that does not go unnoticed.

It is already out there, and while Andrew believes in guilt, he does not believe in regret. “Kevin.”

“Last time I checked—” Kevin breathes out. “Last time I checked, you were the one who told me no.”

“When have I done that?” Andrew asks, nonplussed.

“The first time we went to Edens,” comes Kevin’s easy reply, “you told me you would never.”

And of course, of _course_ Kevin took Andrew’s absentminded evasion as an ultimate truth — for his supposed bad memory, who in the world remembers rejection as well as Kevin does?

“That,” Andrew starts, “was not a no.” He crosses his arms. “Yet, one thing you got right: there was no way I could have done anything with you back then. You would not have known how to tell me no.”

Kevin blinks in surprise. “Oh.”

Andrew studies his face for a brief moment — a map of the moon, with all its curves and dips and swells — before sighing out, resigned in his unintentional confession, “Do you, now?”

“Do I what?”

“Do you know how to tell me no?”

“I did spend half a year telling you no after no,” Kevin points out, bluntly honest for all of his previous surprise. Andrew revels in it, because it is the Kevin that he knows. “I would still break your arm in two if you laid a hand on me, if that is what you’re asking.”

Andrew just blankly stares, unconvinced.

Kevin rolls his eyes in spite of their situation — “How very Christian of you,” he all but mocks, “to think that I would regret it even one bit if you touched me. I owe you nothing. If anything, you would have it coming.”

“Yes,” Andrew limits himself to agreeing. “Good.”

Kevin steals a glance at his face, but does not say anything else. 

“Kevin,” he says after a moment of silence.

“What?”

“I do not enjoy repeating myself.”

Kevin raises an eyebrow. “I’m afraid you’ll have to do it.”

Andrew clenches his jaw, but doesn’t back down as he points out, “You reckon I just said that I want you.”

“I,” Kevin frowns, punctuating his sentence with the emphasis of a lecturer, “am not _yours_ to want. I thought you and Neil were exclusive.”

It’s like they’re talking in two different languages. Andrew fights the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration. “Don’t be näive,” he drags out like smoke from a cigarette, and oh, does Andrew want one right now. If he can’t indulge in this addiction, he’ll have to indulge in another; preferably one that does not involve thinking of the weight of Kevin’s mouth against his own.

“How would I have known you weren't?!” Kevin stares at him as if Andrew just grew a second head right then and there. It’s _too early_ in the morning for this: Andrew can’t believe he walked himself into this conversation.

Andrew sighs, longsuffering, before letting the penny drop: “We are. Exclusive. To everyone, but you. If you want to.”

What follows is a silence so long Andrew thinks Kevin will give him one of his trademarked long speeches, but all that comes out of his lips is a short-lived and confused, “What?”

“You heard.”

Kevin frowns. “You never told me.”

“It was a recent realization,” Andrew replies, unmoved.

“Neil—”

“Neil is well agreeing.” Then, on a lower tone: “Neil brought it up in the first place.”

That is all it takes for Kevin to fully short circuit. If he looked at Andrew like he had a second head before, now it’s like Andrew turned into a completely new, different and strange creature in front of his very eyes, something akin to a three-headed dog, or perhaps a cat with one too many eyes. It would be comic, see, if Andrew weren’t regretting each of his words by the minute.

Kevin mulls it over in his head systematically. Andrew sees the wheels of his brain working, and patiently waits for him to sort out how he feels about it. At last, Kevin breathes out: “Andrew, you’re being cruel. The two of you. You’re being cruel.”

“Pray tell, Kevin, how are we being cruel?” Andrew asks, the muscles of his face tensing up on instinct.

“You’re—” he starts, pointing a shaky finger in Andrew’s direction. Kevin looked as if the simple confession of Andrew and Neil wanting him was a fatal blow unleashed upon his head in full aggression, and not the harmless truth Andrew had meant for it to be. “I don’t— You’re—”

“Kevin,” Andrew interrupts him, slowly raising a palm to block Kevin’s line of vision from where it latches, like clockwork, onto his twitching left hand. Kevin’s eyes don’t stray, so Andrew prompts: “Look at me. Breathe. You cannot tell me what is bothering you if you cannot speak at all.”

A strangled breath leaves Kevin’s mouth, and he furiously splutters, “How _dare_ you, how _dare the two of you—_ I’m not— I’m not just _something_ you can _use_ —”

Andrew’s face falls stoic, and he lets his hand drop. “What.”

Kevin’s mouth curls into an angry frown. “What the fuck makes you think I want to be your fuck buddy?” he spits out, hiding his shaking hands under his knees. “What the fuck made you think that saying that was a good idea, Andrew?”

“What,” Andrew slowly puts out, “do you think I’m offering you?”

“ _You_ tell me. _You_ tell me what you’re offering.” He takes a breath so forceful it makes his chest shake with the sheer strength of it. “It’s a _no_ if you— if you want me just for one night, it’s a no. If you want me just for sex, it’s a _no._ Andrew, do you understand? I’ve been second place my whole life. I _won’t_ do it again because you—”

Andrew’s hand works quicker than his mind, and he stops Kevin from finishing his sentence by placing his palm atop of his mouth. “I would _never_ ,” he snarls, so close to Kevin he could count every dent of green in his eyes as they stare back at Andrew, furious and confused and— beautiful, always beautiful, “do that to you. You could _never_ mean nothing. Stop putting words on my mouth, or I will make you.”

Kevin makes a sound in the back of his throat that could be both surprise and devastation — either way, it dissolves into the skin of Andrew’s palm. “Andrew,” he repeats, small and dragged, and Andrew can’t let go of him because he doesn’t want to see it; he doesn’t want to see Kevin’s face crumble, doesn’t want to see his lips quiver and tremble, doesn’t want to acknowledge that he destroys everything he touches, and that he could never, in a million years, be good to Kevin. “ _Andrew_ ,” Kevin insists, the vibrations of his voice pushing through Andrew’s veins, “I don’t understand.”

And Andrew could say — leave it, forget I ever said anything, get out of my room, get out of my life, get out of my _head_ —, but he doesn’t think he’ll survive it this time. He doesn’t think he can afford to lose Kevin again.

Andrew exhales a shaky breath, tightening his free hand into a fist. “Tell me what you want,” he tells Kevin, inelegantly knocking their foreheads together, “and I will make it happen.” Andrew slowly lets the palm that was covering Kevin’s mouth fall flat onto the sheets. “Say yes or no.”

Kevin’s eyebrows furrow, but this time he doesn’t pull away. He leans strongly against Andrew, the sharp tip of his nose knocking against his, and murmurs, “Yes or no to what?”

“You know what,” Andrew replies, almost softly. The closest to it he can get.

“I know what,” Kevin eventually concedes, his voice falling so quiet it could disappear between them and never come back. His eyelashes are so long they can almost brush against Andrew’s own, and when Kevin looks down, a traitorous part of Andrew’s breath hitches. “I will think about it.”

There is nothing else Andrew can do; not a single case he can plead. He nods. “You will.”

“I will,” Kevin nods back. He is silent for a short while, breathing into the slowly-disappearing abrupt whirlwind of emotion, before saying, “I have a question.”

“Do tell.”

“Did you—” he stumbles onto his words lightly. “Did you only pull me in today because of this?”

 _And will I lose it if I say no?_ goes implied. Sometimes Andrew forgets that everything in Kevin's life has been a case of manipulation and bargaining. “No,” Andrew silently admits, “I would have done it regardless.”

Kevin lets out a sigh that Andrew wishes was not of relief, because he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if it was. “Okay.” He knocks their noses together once more before pulling away, the weight of him sorely missed as soon as it is gone. “I will think about it with care. I promise you that I will.”

“Okay,” Andrew tells him, because there is nothing he can do. This is it. He’s been emptied out — everything is white noise now; numb and fuzzy; and Andrew misses Kevin’s skin. The feel, the color, the warmth of it.

A stray eyelash stuck just under Kevin’s eye stares back at him petulantly, urging him to do something about it, and Andrew, fool that he is, reaches out on the first thought, much more used to taking than he is to giving. Delicately, he pinches it between his fingers, watching as Kevin freezes under his hands, and blows it to the dimly lit hotel bedroom engulfing the mess of them.

Be as it may, Andrew does not want for Kevin to suffer — does not want his eyes red and blue like they once were, scrubbed raw from tears, and does not want to be the reason for it altogether. Andrew can’t help himself: he wants Kevin to be happy. He does.

“Make a wish,” he deadpans, motioning towards the now-missing eyelash. Kevin blinks at him in surprise, one or twenty lifetimes stuck between his eyelids, and Andrew doesn’t ask him what he wished for, if only because he does not want to know if it’s someone else that Kevin thinks of.

At last, Kevin huffs something that could or could not be a laugh. It doesn’t matter, see: Andrew would’ve taken about anything from him if he said it with that mouth of his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dayurno on tumblr! next update november 25th! have a good day! sorry for the cliff hanger im gay and into dramatics


	6. / leave me crawling back to you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> simp nation called, andrew. they want their rulebook back

**Neil is typing…**

**Neil:** _Do you think he'll say yes?_

Andrew scoffs lowly, struggling to single handedly button up his dress shirt. 

**Andrew:** _If he does, we will have a conversation about what is a no and what is a yes for him._

He hesitates before typing out:

**Andrew:** _K's initial reaction was bad. Assumed it was just sex; implied it would make him feel like an object. Maybe it is sex in general that he does not want._

**Neil is typing…**

**Neil is typing…**

**Neil is typing…**

**Neil:** _You’ll know more about this than me, if he needs help with setting boundaries._

Andrew finishes buttoning up his shirt before sitting down on the edge of the bed to tackle the awful, no good dress shoes Kevin had said it would've been unsightly not to wear. 

**Andrew:** _You will be there to listen._

Neil's response is immediate.

**Neil:** _Of course._

**Andrew:** _Riko is the reason behind the no-shared-beds rule. K said it was okay to tell you. You might understand it better than I do._

He drops his phone to the side to slide into his shoes and suit jacket, not bothering to check his image in the mirror one last time before bolting out of his hotel room. On the elevator, he fishes for his phone once more.

**Neil:** _It makes sense. I always thought it was creepy that Riko kept Kevin’s side of their dorm intact even after a year. I imagined he had to be obsessive about other things, too._

The scowl that takes over Andrew's face is as involuntary as it is immediate. 

**Andrew:** _Sick motherfucker._

**Neil is typing…**

**Neil:** _May he rest in piss._

Andrew agrees silently, but does not type in a reply, instead throwing his phone back into his suit’s inner pocket and grasping for his wallet. He wouldn’t be riding to the event with the Stingrays, given this morning’s events and how long it took him to gather himself after them, but he’d meet Kevin there, if only because Andrew would not have anyone else to sit with either way. He waits in the lobby for a little while, chin held up and arms crossed, before calling a taxi, unusually alone for what it counts. 

He enjoyed his solitude for its rare bolts, and, when push comes to shove, Andrew would rather be crowded by his family’s loud voices than to quietly sit in the back of a cab, though he does it anyway, looking out of the window and letting the charmingly unrecognizable Boston background eat up every bit of past there is to dwell onto. It’s a cold night — fall is slowly melting into a chilly winter, goosebumps riding up the entire country’s arm, but it was still early enough in October for that to not be such a problem. Halloween is a week from now, slotted between a Friday night that will be spent in the court and a Sunday morning Andrew is definitely not coming to church on, and the plans were the same ones of always: terrible party city costumes and Eden’s Twilight until they couldn’t take it anymore. 

The addition of Robin into this year’s Halloween celebration was the one thing that made it different from the past years, but it was also what convinced Kevin to drive all the way from Charleston on the afternoon of the 31st of October to spend the weekend in their stuffy college dorm once more, as if nothing had changed at all. Andrew wonders if today’s conversation will have any impact on those plans, but finds it unlikely — there was little Kevin wouldn’t do for Robin, and even less that he wouldn’t do to see his father. Neil and Andrew wouldn’t be a problem for him; not really. 

It takes Andrew half an hour to get to the event, but getting through is almost too easy — he is let in after a brief flash of his invitation, and at sudden he is standing at a pompous ballroom full to the brim with Exy players, the type of people Andrew despises the most, spread around in big tables he supposes are divided for teams, their representatives and available new players of all ages and sizes. It’s unnecessarily elegant: pretty party dresses and lustrous black suits are the last thing Andrew would think of at the mention of Exy, but the professional league reclaims more class than college-level Exy does, sober tones dancing around the room as the chatter is quiet; contained; almost graceful. 

The music is… Perhaps the best part of it. Class I Exy banquets oftentimes lack music that is not team anthems or boring classical tunes, but tonight the world is burrowed under the muffled sound of Bossa Nova, a live band tucked into the far corner of the room in all of its regal black tones as the singer hums into the microphone, his voice barely above a whisper. Andrew is not a fan of beauty, but he has a knack for all kinds of oddities, and the foreign swirl of the singer’s tone can allow him to enjoy the melody without being swallowed up by the usual corny lyrics. 

Not that Andrew can tell what he is singing, Portuguese as foreign of a language to him as every face in this room, but he supposes the lyrics can’t be all that bad when the voice of who sings them is so pleasant and easy to the ear.

The Stingrays have a table of their own, near the very end of the room, but Kevin notices him all the way from the dance floor, no more different than how he looked at their college banquets. Andrew wonders if he owns multiple versions of the same black suit, or if it’s just one that’s been collecting dust in his closet all of these years — either way, it makes him look like the handsome reward for this sorry mess of an event, so Andrew does not plan on complaining about it any soon. 

Kevin’s eyebrows smooth out gently as he meets eyes with Andrew across the room, looking over one of his teammate’s shoulders with eyes twice the size of the moon, and he raises a tentative hand in his direction, a beckoning in lieu of hello. Andrew, bewitched man that he is, wastes no time in setting off towards him, maneuvering himself around dancing bodies and small groups of chattering people. 

The music keeps on playing, and the people keep on dancing. Night wears Andrew’s eyes out like a fancy party dress, the hollowness of his throat a reminder that this, too, will surely snap him in half one day, unforgivably so. Growing out of college years and into an adult, much like everything else in life, is about realizing a few seconds prior that you’re about to be shot down — you know it’s coming, you prepare yourself for the hit, you feel the bullet in your fingertips before you feel it in your torso, but nothing can prepare you for the impact.

And then you keep the bullet. You keep the memory of it through postcards and graduation pictures, lest you are smart enough to not leave any trace behind. 

As Kevin’s figure gets closer and closer at each step of his, Andrew realizes he’s way past the point of no return when it comes to having something to lose.

“Andrew,” he greeted as soon as Andrew was close enough to hear him, “are you well?”

The Andrew in question grinds his teeth together painfully. “Yes,” he replies, slotting himself by Kevin’s side rather easily as the conversation centered around him comes to an abrupt halt, Kevin’s attention now turned towards Andrew. “Are you?”

Kevin huffs, passing a champagne flute to Andrew as if he couldn’t even bear to touch it. “Not that well,” Kevin admits, offering the rest of the group an apologetic smile before he bolts out of their conversation, sure enough that Andrew would trail behind. “Someone offers me a drink at every turn I take.”

“Well,” Andrew replies in his tow, matter-of-factly, “do not accept them.”

“Granted, I have not.” Kevin rolls his eyes, all but zooming through suits and dresses, and Andrew catches the back of his jacket if only so he won’t lose Kevin from sight. “Being clean doesn’t mean I don’t miss it, though.”

“Why?” Andrew prompts, dunking as someone holding a trail of drinks over their head passes them by, “Something stressing you?”

It is redundant, of course, but Kevin is nothing if not brutally honest — “Yes, you,” he easily answers, snaking a hand behind him for Andrew to grab upon instead of crinkling the back of his suit. After a moment of hesitation, Andrew takes it. “You stress me more than anyone else.” He pauses, then corrects himself: “I don’t mean that. Neil stresses me more.”

"Aren't we a pair," Andrew evades, the inside of his knuckles fitting into Kevin's for the second time that day. The easy slide makes his breath hitch, but there is no time for that — "I do not mean to."

Kevin briefly twists his neck back to frown at Andrew before turning around once more. "What do you mean?"

"I do not mean to cause you stress," Andrew replies, spelling out the words carefully, neutrally. "I do not want— to be bad to you. I only meant to tell you the truth."

_But I see, now, that my intentions have ultimately failed me._

Abruptly, Kevin resumes their walking, making Andrew bump his forehead right between his shoulder blades. He doesn't turn around to point out, "Neil told me the same thing," but he doesn't have to for Andrew to know that he is frowning, green eyes absent from him once more.

"What."

"That he doesn't want to be bad to me," Kevin clarifies, his shoulders slumping. After a brief moment, he starts walking again, pulling Andrew along with him through their connected hands. "After we fought. In Charleston. Was it— Did you already know, then?"

Andrew purses his lips. "Yes," he confesses, "but he did not know that I knew. It was not premeditated."

"Hm," Kevin replies, but he squeezes Andrew's hand like one squeezes fruit to know if it's ripe, and the world comes to a sudden halt. 

For maybe the first time in his life, Andrew does not know what Kevin means — it is as thrilling as it is terrifying; disorienting; bewildering. The affection left him adrift: was it a comfort, a reassurance? Was it a reprimand? The sudden confusion abruptly reminds Andrew of how the Kevin of his head and the Kevin of his reality diverge: one he knew, the other he did not. Both he adored.

He convinces himself that it does not matter. If one disappeared, he would have the other — if the real Kevin disappeared, Andrew would have to suffice with the one that lives in his mind on the daily. Isn't the thought of it worth just as much as the real thing, he wonders? Fantasy can be just as strong of a poison with the right amount of repression to make up for the longing.

Kevin guides him to a reclusive corner of the Stingrays' table, only purses and jackets telling them which chairs were occupied and which ones were not. Andrew should probably let go of his hand, but Kevin makes no move to pull away, and so he does not — once they're sat down in front of empty plates and fancy origami napkins, all Andrew does is tuck their joined hands under the table, resting above Kevin's thigh where no one could see them.

He watches the dance floor, and Andrew watches him. "Whom are you going to dance with?" he deadpans, at last, the thickened silence stretching out between them unbearable on its own. With Kevin, Andrew often finds himself looking for excuses to initiate conversation — he supposes Kevin's silences were unnerving enough to subdue even his own. 

Kevin scoffs. "Jane Austen. Emma or Jane Eyre?"

Andrew hides the sharp tug of a smile behind the sleeve of his suit. "Emma. I reckon I asked you a question."

He rolls his eyes far enough into their sockets that Andrew is surprised they did not permanently stay there, but after a moment of hesitation, replies: "With you, if you will ask me."

That is the very end of his leash, though — "Granted, I will not," Andrew easily rejects, though Kevin hadn't been offering anything in the first place, only completing a citation Andrew prompted him towards. Small ways of fooling himself into thinking he has control, Andrew supposes. 

"I didn't expect you to," Kevin hums back, nonplussed. "But I'll dance regardless. If not with you, with someone else."

Andrew quirks an eyebrow. "Wouldn't dream of stopping you."

"Good. You wouldn't be able to."

"Good."

"So-so, I'd say."

"Agreeable."

"Tolerable at best," Kevin ultimately concedes. 

"Who?" Andrew asks in faux innocence, almost boyish. Almost truthful. "Me?"

Kevin hesitates. "Stupid men are the only one worth knowing, after all," is his ultimate reply, said in a voice so dry Andrew thought he could choke on it hadn't it come with the balm of Kevin's not-smile, of which looked so ridiculous he was prompted to ogle at it until it disappeared. 

"Pride and Prejudice does quite suit you," he evades, if only so he could will himself out of the sinewy path that is trying to understand what Kevin says, "but I do not appreciate you calling me stupid, see. And especially not with that tone of yours."

"Hm," Kevin hums nonchalantly, "tell me which words I've said that you don't like, and I'll repeat them."

From where their intertwined hands sat, Andrew pinches the back of Kevin's hand, making him yelp in surprise. "It is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy," he replies at last, the quotation coming as easy to the tongue as the touch that followed it, a quick swipe of his thumb over the skin he had pinched to provoke. "May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are they the result of previous study?"

Kevin scoffs. "Your memory is terrifying."

"As am I."

"As you are." He nods in agreement.

Andrew chooses to ignore that to reach for one of the remaining bowls of appetizers on the far end of the table, gathering a handful of cheese cubes and dropping them on Kevin's plate. "Eat something, pest, and stop bothering me," he commands, yanking his hand away from Kevin's grasp and missing the warmth almost instantaneously after.

"Hmph," is what Kevin replies, but he does as he's told, and Andrew watches until he remembers he is supposed not to.

Kevin Day, Andrew always thought, is the poster child of the human race — standing perfectly well nourished and at six feet tall, he is, rather effortlessly, bearer of all of the good and bad traits that have been assumed to be human nature up until now. Kevin is curious, competitive, greedy, ambitious; dangerously foolish and yet oddly beautiful; prideful and stubborn; hot-blooded, hot-headed and too easy to love. He does not know how to be alone, but does not want company either. He wants to own everything under Heaven, and yet rejects his very desires once they are put right in front of him. He is delicate, so delicate he is the one the ghosts know not to torment lest they want to contend with Andrew, and still Andrew has yet to see him break. 

Contradictory, Andrew supposes, but charming. Everyone loves a hero, a martyr — if they did not, Kevin would not be so well loved from each and every corner of his life, from Jean Moreau's unwavering loyalty to David Wymack's unbound faith. Kevin is supposed to be touched; loved; protected; because he knows nothing but, and demands nothing less. Any untamed, inexhaustibly wild creature demands love so big that it becomes unattainable, and yet the people — always the people, always the people — are able to attain it, because there is nothing more irresistible than the ability to find love where it is not supposed to be. Kevin is quite like that, Andrew thinks: a lesson in faith, in love. A constant reminder of the universal responsibility of behaving like a friend not only to him, but, foremost, to the world. 

The Nest had fractured that aspect of his personality, sure, but the more the years go the more Andrew sees it coming together once more, regenerating what he supposes once was Kayleigh Day's pride and joy. A brilliant woman, Andrew can recognize — who had given him not one, but two things to build his life around. Andrew felt obliged to shake her ghost's hand if he ever came across it.

"You," Kevin complains, dispersing Andrew's dense cloud of thought, "are zoning out."

"And you are desperate for attention," Andrew hums back, not bothering to disagree. "Does your therapist know, I wonder, or is it a she-said-he-said type of situation?"

He scowls, the corners of his lips tugging downwards. Well enough: add jealous to Kevin's list of human native traits. How a man could be jealous of thoughts, Andrew did not know, but Kevin was nothing if not an overachiever. "He knows," he informs Andrew petulantly, "and I'm not desperate. I know enough is enough."

"That is where I am forced to disagree," Andrew replies, unmoved. "Too much is the only amount of attention fit for someone like you. I have seen it myself, see."

"And yet," Kevin observes, "you give it to me."

"And yet," he agrees, "I give it to you. I am afraid that is where I go wrong."

"Stop doing it, then."

"You don't tell me what to do."

"No." Kevin nods. "But I rather like it."

Andrew offers him a dry once over, lifting the forgotten flute of champagne to his mouth. "Clearly."

To his surprise, Kevin's response is a toothy grin, mirthful and brimming with mischief, like a little boy caught red-handed with his fingers shoved into the forbidden cookie jar. Andrew found it unbearably endearing. "I have a question," Kevin announces. 

Andrew slides a cool gaze his way, which is the most encouragement Kevin will get. It does not deter him any — "Were you small as a boy?" Kevin asks, leaning his chin against his closed fist. "I've been thinking of little league. I think we would have been friends if we met earlier."

"Are we not friends now?" Andrew asks, dripping sarcasm, but eventually concedes when Kevin seems to ignore the question, "We would not have been friends as children."

"We would have played in opposing teams," Kevin tells him, tracing the rim of Andrew's flute of champagne with the tip of his finger, following the path Andrew's mouth had been through. "You don't need height to be a goalie, so it's okay if you were small as a boy. What I want most is to have been a boy with you and played on the opposite team so I could have liked you and competed against you at the same time."

Andrew smacks his hand away from the flute, picking it up and downing it in one long gulp if only to make it go away. "Shut up," he replies after he is done with the drink, "we would not have liked each other. We would not have been friends."

He motions dismissively. " _I_ would have been your friend. I would have bothered you into liking me, see. I was a very stubborn child."

 _I would have bothered you into liking me._ Old habits die hard, it seems.

"Did you do that to Neil?" Andrew asks. 

"Yes," Kevin's reply comes easy and immediate. "We didn't have enough time to be friends, but yes. He was this small, and this quiet, but he was so fierce." He pauses for a moment, tapping his fingers against the tablecloth, before admitting, "I asked about him after he disappeared. It caused this." Kevin motions towards the small scar on his forehead, barely noticeable now. "Cigarette burn. It was the first time the Master really hurt me."

Andrew hums. "But not the last."

"No," Kevin quietly agrees, "not the last." 

In that moment, Andrew convinces himself that Kevin would be reincarnated as something better, and in that world, he would be loved so thoroughly and deliciously that he would never question if the Kevin that came before was not, because it would not matter. Neil’s original idea, sure, but Andrew was sure he wouldn’t mind sharing. 

"Something happened when you were a child," Andrew finds himself saying, adamantly impassive, "I did not know you then and I will never understand why it feels like I did."

Kevin shrugs. "Don't all sad children know each other in one way or another?" he wonders aloud, "I don't reckon there is a big scope of emotional divergence between children. We learn individuality as we grow."

"You are talking nonsense."

"Yes. But it's you I am talking this nonsense to, and it's not any less true."

Andrew pats his thigh from under the table. "Go find yourself something shiny to play with. I have grown tired of your preening."

Kevin flicks Andrew's fingers away, but excuses himself out of the table all the same, stretching out his arms before nodding his goodbye and zooming into the dance floor, presumably in search of a teammate to bother. Andrew's eyes follow him everywhere he goes, from one side of the ballroom to another, waltzing in their own way. Andrew will not dance with him, not here, but it does not mean he won't dance at all.

He abides by his promise of dancing with someone else not soon after, but Andrew only has eyes for Kevin, sparing his dance partner no more than a brief glance of assessment. It’s an elegant waltz, he will give them that — ever prisoner of himself, Kevin lets himself go between one-two-three steps and graceful spins, a half-smile on his face he doesn’t quite seem to be able to let go of as River guides him past other dancing pairs after a quick curtsy from both sides, clumsy like only two children could be. Andrew does not believe in jealousy, and he wants Kevin to be happy, but that does not mean the sight of someone else’s hand on Kevin’s back does not awaken a longing almost ancient inside of him.

Andrew’s hands do not belong to himself, and it is quite foolish to think that they do. More often than not, they exist in two spaces: where Neil and Kevin are, and where Andrew is. 

He monitors the dancing for as long as it occurs, though his mind wanders and wanders through the ballroom and the city, going down each Boston alleyway and curbing cul-de-sacs. The music should call off soon in order for the food to be served, and it is, quite frankly, the highlight Andrew has been looking forward to — he will inevitably stick around for as long as Kevin does, but there will be no enjoyment to it, even more so when Kevin’s attention is not on him. Andrew, who had been getting used to being the lighthouse in the fickle sea of Kevin’s attention, sorely missed it each time it was on someone else.

Andrew calls him over the second the band resumes their playing. Kevin easily complies, his hair ruffled and his forehead sweaty as he chuckles his way to the table, now being followed by a barricade of fellow teammates Andrew has no intention of interacting with at all. He snatches Kevin’s wrist the second he is within reach, and tugs him forward until he is the only thing standing — or rather, sitting — between Andrew and the rest of the table.

“Are you,” Kevin breathes out, an almost-pant, “having fun?”

Perhaps out of habit, Andrew reaches for one of the discartable napkins to pat against Kevin’s forehead, soaking out the shiny layer of sweat and being rewarded a full blown smile in return, which Andrew promptly ignores. “No,” he replies, swiping a thumb under Kevin’s eyes under the excuse of sweat. 

Kevin hums. “I am.”

“Good for you.”

“Yes,” he hums again, eventually craning his neck towards Andrew to make it easier for him to— do whatever he was doing. “Good for me.”

Andrew lets his thumb drag over the queen tattoo for a brief moment before dropping his hand to his lap. Kevin doesn’t follow after it like Neil would, but he does place his hand at the side of his face absentmindedly, leaning against it and fitting his palm where Andrew’s thumb had been. “I want to talk to you,” Kevin tells him. 

“Are we not having a conversation, pray tell?” Andrew deadpans, leaning back into his seat.

Kevin huffs. “You know what I mean.” He drags his thumb down the slope of his own jaw in thought before clarifying: “But I don’t want to talk now. Do you have any reservations about having a private conversation in the bathroom of an Exy event?”

“Do you?” 

“I take no response from you as a no.” 

Andrew taps against the table top. “I will talk to you. When?”

“Is after dinner okay?” Kevin asks, then — after what Andrew supposes is a bolt of courage — adds, “This is not me saying yes or no. I just want to…” 

“Want to?”

“Tell you what is on my mind, I guess,” he eventually clarifies. “If you would want to hear it.”

Andrew blinks at him. “After dinner, then.”

Kevin’s shoulders drop considerably in relief. “Okay,” comes his soft spoken answer, “after dinner.”

He does not know what to say, then, so he drops the subject all the same. It is okay, though — when he taps his fingers against Kevin’s spine in question, Kevin leans closer to the edge of the table so Andrew can slide a hand at the small of his back, where it belongs. After another nod from Kevin, he buries his hand under his suit jacket, only the ultimate layer of Kevin’s dress shirt keeping him from touching bare skin, though Andrew does not go there: he wouldn’t know how to pull away if he did.

Andrew keeps it there for as long as it is not awkward to, and then a little bit more. Dinner is fancy food and loud music and the soft sound of Kevin’s chuckles, not directed at him but enjoyable nonetheless. Heavenly bells, the romantics would say, though Andrew is neither a romantic nor fond of the heavenly. 

At some point, during passing wine glasses and twinkling cutlery, one of Kevin's teammates gently prods a plate of appetizers towards Andrew, who hadn't eaten much himself on the reasoning that he couldn't bother to leave the table and set up a plate of his own. Daniel — how _despicable_ it is that Andrew even knows this man's name at all, he ponders to himself — offers him a squiggly smile, pearly white teeth flashing under thick lips, and prompts, "Andrew, isn't it?"

Receiving no answer but a brief glance in his direction, Daniel continues, "Andrew—? Por favor. Have something to eat. We are his friends," — as gentle as they come, he motions towards Kevin's back, turned to them as he continues ignorant to their conversation in order to argue with the rest of the table about a historical figure Andrew doesn't bother to recognize — "and he will not forgive us if we let you starve."

Andrew doesn't reply, but hooks his finger under the plate and carefully brings it over, resulting in Daniel's smile widening. "Thank you," he replies, steady and warm, and doesn't bother Andrew any further as he settles back into the conversation.

After dinner comes, and with it Kevin’s sudden disappearance — after a brief moment of reassurance that he would be back, Andrew watches as he disappears into the crowd once more, though so quickly it was almost like he had never left at all. It takes Kevin five minutes of absence before he comes back to Andrew with his chin held high and his hand out for him to hold, every drop of his blood royal under the black suit and the brown skin. Andrew stares at his hand for one, two, three seconds before taking it, the familiar scarring of it carving a permanent indentation in the shape of them on the skin of Andrew’s palm. 

The bathroom, Andrew realizes, is just as fancy as the rest of the ballroom: small chandeliers hang atop of Kevin’s head as he steps into it, the bright yellow light making his pitch black hair turn almost a dark brown, long enough now that Andrew could reach out and tug on it for his attention. He had a buzzcut when they first met — too short for Andrew to ever think of reaching to it, though it had made Kevin look younger, once. Broodier, too, with his thick eyebrows and angular nose, looking down at the world like it could never impress him, looking down at _Andrew_ like he could never impress him.

This Kevin is nothing alike to that Kevin — his eyes have softer lines around them, his mouth is not frowned at the corners, and Andrew can be good to him now. His skin had gotten darker over the years, healthier with the sun; his hair had grown out; his arms had gotten stronger and his shoulders had gained the easy pride of someone who does not have to beg anymore. Kevin changed, right under Andrew’s nose, and yet he hadn’t noticed it, too busy looking at the still-plush curve of Kevin’s lips, the still-bright green of his eyes, the still-wide lazy grin that he carries with much more ease now. Andrew found himself charmed by everything that changed and everything that stayed the same.

Kevin doesn’t talk right away, waiting for Andrew to close the door behind him. After he does, it’s just them, as they always have been.

That hasn’t changed yet.

Yet.

Andrew takes his time with taking all of Kevin in: his sweetly long legs and his wants-to-be-long hair (Nicky calls it his pretty boy haircut — Andrew agrees, but wouldn’t be caught dead saying so), the handsome tip of his nose and the defined line of his waist, his high cheekbones and tall, gracious neck. Kevin was not handsome in the snarky way Neil was, but that is what made the two of them so interesting to look at, both together and apart. Where Neil was sharp-looking, with doe eyes and the malicious smile of a man whose intentions were made out of pure mischief, Kevin was softer, gentler: everything from his droopy eyes to the soft curve of his eyebrows lended him the classic boy-next-door role, pretty and inevitably unattainable. Too good to be any good for Andrew, Kevin is not his to have, but so wasn’t Neil, once, and look at where they are now.

Absentmindedly, he tugs at one of the longer strands of Kevin’s hair to get his attention. “Make yourself useful,” Andrew tells him, swallowing down the urge to roll the strand around his finger pad, “and talk.”

Kevin huffs. His petulance was not spoiled by the polish of his good looks, be as it may — the frankness native to Kevin Day was no less vicious than it had once been, and his strong will still held its own even through Andrew’s self-admitted unnerving gaze. The more Andrew looked at him, the more he realized how Kevin had changed over the years, though he found nothing to perplex at aside from the sprightly elegance of which Andrew only disapproved because he found it to be incredibly distracting. 

When Andrew drops his hand, Kevin’s own takes its place, raking through the darkness of his hair in what Andrew knows by now is a nervous tell. “Do you remember,” he starts, “what I told Neil when we fought? In the apartment?”

Andrew’s response is a monotone, “I remember everything.”

“Yes,” Kevin agrees, “but do you _remember_?”

It is such an odd question Andrew feels himself start at it. “How else could I remember it?” he asks, matter-of-factly.

“You remember things differently when you pay attention to them,” is Kevin’s explanation, an ominous yet truthful observation of Andrew’s character that left him burning in the uncomfortable feeling of being both seen and known. “You know better.” 

Quietly, Andrew admits, “I do not.”

Kevin’s shoulders slump. Still, he soldiers on, “I told him to stop talking to me like I was his pet. Your pet.” Kevin brings a hand to his jaw, gently dragging his thumb up and down his jugular in a self-soothing fidget, and Andrew is taken over by the bothersome urge of replacing Kevin’s hand with his own. “I don’t feel like that anymore. I don’t want— to feel like that anymore. Which is why, before I tell you yes or no, I need to know that this won’t happen again: even in the far future. Even when you are mad at me. Even when I’m hurt and being difficult and stubborn and you don’t want to deal with it. I _need_ —” Kevin stresses his struggle with his hands, motioning something incommunicable, “to know you won’t cut me down at the knees again.”

Understandingly, Andrew hums. “I do not plan to. And I do not think Neil does, either.”

“That’s not enough,” comes Kevin’s quick reply. “You know that’s not enough.”

“What would be enough?” Andrew wonders aloud, sounding aloof to his own words even if he felt anything but. “What is ever enough with you?’

It is half tease and half sincere curiosity, though Kevin’s answer comes easily nonetheless: “If you explained it to me, that would be enough.”

“Explain what, pray tell?”

From where he leant against the sink, Kevin crossed his arms, meeting Andrew’s gaze with confusion so big in his eyes it felt like they were speaking in different languages the other did not know a word of. “Explain why just now did you decide that you want me, and _what_ do you want, and, and, how did that come to be, and — most importantly — _why_ do you want it. Because I’ve been thinking of it, Andrew, and I don’t understand.” A soft tremor courses through his shoulders, forceful in the way that his breaths came and his words left. 

“I do not know what do you want me to tell you,” Andrew replies. It is, for what it’s worth, genuine — Andrew does not understand what more there is to explain. 

“I want you to tell me the truth,” Kevin inquires, inexhaustible and unrelenting and oh, so beautiful. “I want you to tell me what made you change your mind.”

Andrew quirks an eyebrow at him. “I have not changed my mind about anything, Kevin Day.”

“You didn’t want me before.”

“That is not for you to decide.”

“Then—” Kevin drags out a sigh. “Then why? Andrew, I can’t see how _you_ could want me. Neil— I don’t get Neil, either. You have made a point out of not being my friends for years now, and I just… I don’t want to think that we were never friends at all. I mean—” hands through his hair again, this time harsher. The next time he does it, Andrew will have no choice but to catch his wrist before he manages to rip hair off of his own head. “Was that the only reason you kept me around at all? Because— because I wasn’t family like Nicky and Aaron were, and you didn’t like me like you liked Neil, but I was just attractive enough that you could, one day, want me?”

Andrew blinks in surprise at the sudden outburst, but does not let the initial shock of it keep him from reaching Kevin in two large strides, faster than his legs can take him. The tips of their social shoes touch, but Andrew makes no move to do the same, because he does not think Kevin would take it well right now.

“Listen to me,” Andrew tells him, letting his palm pair, upturned, just under Kevin’s chin, not even close enough to touch. In spite of Andrew's previous assumption, Kevin looks at it for a brief moment before fitting his chin into Andrew’s palm, as if the two of them made no sense to be this close and not touching. 

“You,” he drags out slowly, curling his fingers around Kevin’s cheeks and squeezing down firmly, “are not my friend. I could not be your friend. Do you understand? Your claws are too deep in my gut for us to be friends. You,” Andrew, for once, hesitates, “I do not _want_ you as a friend.” 

He is good at this — at telling Kevin all the ways Andrew does not want him, because the contrary would have taken him infinity to say. 

“I don’t know if I will ever understand,” Kevin confesses, and it is a pity because — his eyes are glossy, and he is beautiful, and yet he is not Andrew’s to kiss. “But I believe you. I believe that you want me. I do.”

It is perhaps the best Andrew will ever get from him, so all he does is nod. “Andrew,” Kevin calls, this time so much softer — fonder, even. Andrew watches as he tentatively raises a palm between them, pairing above Andrew’s cheek as if waiting for permission.

In what Andrew would call a show of rotten judgement, he drops the hand on Kevin’s chin to catch Kevin’s wrist, turning into it and pressing a kiss to the thin skin just above the faint blue of his veins. Kevin makes a small sound of surprise at the affection, but Andrew does not linger on it before he brings Kevin’s palm to his cheek, pressing his own hand against it before letting it drop completely. A vote of trust that was not completely needed after the years they had spent together, though Andrew had wanted to give it to Kevin nonetheless.

“Andrew,” Kevin repeats, delicately caressing Andrew’s cheek with his thumb. Too soft, too sweet, too good to be good for Andrew. “I’d love to be the one who takes you home. I’d love to be— As yours as one can be. But…”

“But?”

He traces Andrew’s eyebrow with the tip of his thumb; the ghost of a touch. “But I'm not the same person I was when we were younger. I know, supposedly, I'm lonely now, but— Andrew, I'm so happy. I'm so happy here. I love being free. I love going to places alone and I love meeting with my teammates and I love living with Jean. I'd love to be yours, but it just can't be how we were before.” Kevin pauses. “I am telling you this because I know control is important to you. But I don't think— you and Neil will have to have me uncontrolled. Untamed. Or you won't have me at all. Do you understand? You won’t have me at all.”

The contrast between Kevin's words and the softness of his hands is enough to lull Andrew into something so pleased it curls into pride. 

“I understand,” he replies. “It is, Kevin, a matter of yes or no. Tell me what you want, and I will make it happen. It is that simple.”

Kevin scoffs something that could be a laugh. “It’s never that easy,” he points out, and though Andrew knows that it’s true for him, that does not make it a shared truth. “I don’t mean to offend you. I mean— you are _very_ handsome, and I'd love to be with you and Neil. But I love my liberty too well to give it up anytime soon.”

Andrew turns into his palm, murmuring against the skin, “You talk entirely too much.”

“Yes,” comes Kevin’s easy agreement, not bothering to pull Andrew out of the easy hiding spot that is his palm, “I talk too much. I’m mean. I’m vain. I’m obsessive. You and Neil will get tired of my whining and I will get tired of your million bad habits and we will kill each other.”

“Yes,” Andrew hums, because there is no point in lying. And yet — he presses a kiss to the very middle of Kevin’s palm, where life grows like branches out of a tree, and thinks that he could get used to a lifetime of whining.

Kevin makes a noise of frustration. “None of us can keep our temper. We’d quarrel and— Andrew, you’re not listening to me.”

“I have no intention of listening to your whining,” he answers, though his actions betray his words as all that he does is press his lips to Kevin’s pulse point. “And you know well enough by now that I do not care about what you think I should do.”

“ _Andrew_ ,” Kevin urges, though his actions, too, betray his words — his fingers skim over the side of Andrew’s face as if it is precious to the likes of nothing he knows, tucking a strand of blonde hair against his ear, “we will _kill_ each other. Think of how unhappy we will be.”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

He sighs. “It’s neither. But think about it.”

“Kevin,” Andrew sighs back, resigned, “I am getting tired of your voice.”

It is, of course, a lie. Kevin seems to think so, too. “Liar,” he accuses, “you want me.”

Andrew sighs deeper, but does not deny. “I,” he starts, “can kill anything. So can you. So can Neil. We will not kill each other so long as we choose not to.”

“Will you choose not to?”

“If you kiss the way that you talk, yes.”

That seems enough of an answer to get Kevin to shut up, his cheeks falling pink with embarrassment. The angle of his palm against Andrew’s cheek becomes awkward soon enough, with Kevin having to crane down to stare at him, so Andrew waits for a brief nod before urging Kevin over the sink behind them, slotting himself between Kevin’s legs easily. The sudden change of position granted Kevin the privilege of looking past Andrew’s shoulder, which seems to give him enough courage to ask, “Which is the way that I talk?”

Andrew drags his lips down Kevin’s wrist, a rough press. “Too much. Too eagerly.” A pause. “Desperate for attention.’

“Am not.”

“Are, too.”

“Am n— I hate you.”

“Okay.”

Kevin huffs. A snake that had not yet learned how to strike, though Andrew knew Kevin did not use force by choice — he was not harmless; he was living a life that was free from want to harm, which is different. Kevin was not all that gentler, but he’d been better than Andrew when it came to Neil: it occurred to him that it took a certain type of person, a kind person, to allow another to keep their secrets. It was no surprise that Neil clung to Kevin so heavily when he’d been so good to him, _givingivingiving_ with no _takingtakingtaking_. 

For a bizarre moment, Andrew wanted to kiss Kevin for it — for all of the times he’d been good, that is, until his mouth grew bruised like a fruit, low hanging in Andrew’s direction. The kiss would make nothing too heavy to bear: it would take Andrew years to recover from it, but how worth it would it be, to kiss and kiss and kiss until it became as natural as taking lungfuls of air. Absentmindedly, Andrew reaches a hand to rub the nape of Kevin’s neck, if only to make his hands useful.

“Do you want to dance?” Kevin murmurs, half-zoned out and half-present. 

Andrew scoffs, though his fingers dance down Kevin’s neck to his spine carefully, as to not scare. “In a bathroom.”

“Where there is music, there is dancing,” he counterpoints easily, the answer at the tip of his tongue as if he already knew Andrew would’ve been difficult about it. Again: that funny feeling of being known. “You don’t know how to dance, do you?”

“I fail to see how that is any of your business.”

Kevin shrugs. “You’d be surprised to know that, sometimes, I don’t mean any harm when I ask you a question.”

He scrunches up his nose in disbelief. “You must be deluded. You have to be. That therapist of yours is not helping any.”

“Do you,” Kevin repeats, “or do you not want to dance? It is really that simple.”

Truth demands so much bravery, Andrew thinks. He doesn’t know what’s worse: that he wants to dance, that he wants to lie, or that he knows — painstakingly, like a cross through the heart — that he would have given into Kevin’s eager desire to dance even if he himself did not share it, if only to see the ease come back to his eyes. 

Andrew unwinds from him easily. “If you step on my toes, I will kill you.”

Kevin offers him a small smile so victorious Andrew could have used it as proof for Kevin’s infinite desire for attention had he wanted to drive him away and back into his sour mood. Granted, Andrew did not, so he let it slide. 

He jumps from the edge of the sink easily, adjusting himself so he stands in front of Andrew with a bitten-down smile and his hands offered towards him, prompting Andrew to place them wherever he finds fit. Andrew hates, hates, hates him, but that does not deter him from circling his hands around Kevin's wrists and placing his palms on his shoulders. "They will stay here," Andrew tells him, "do not move them."

Kevin smiles, his palms warm where they make a wildfire out of Andrew's shoulders, even if his grasp is delicate. "Wouldn't dream of it."

"Hm," Andrew replies, letting go of his wrists. "Where—" he starts, but eventually sighs, mirroring Kevin's previous position and offering his hands for Kevin to do with them what he wills. This trust should go both ways, or so Neil always says.

He doesn't grab Andrew by the wrist — instead, Kevin gently cups the back of Andrew's hands and brings them to his waist, under the jacket. His hands linger over Andrew's, lightly pressing down before saying, "You have to hold. The worst thing in the world is a dance partner with no attitude."

Granted, Andrew begrudgingly tightens his hands around his waist, to which Kevin replies, "I said _hold,_ not bruise."

He lets his grip loosen. Kevin sighs, bringing his hands down once more to firmly press against the back of Andrew's. "Like this," he commands, holding Andrew's hands in place, "firm without bruising. I know you can learn."

Tentatively, Andrew does as he's told. Kevin nods approvingly, letting his hands claim their spot at Andrew's shoulders once more. "Now you waltz. There is usually a Lead and a Follow in actual waltzing, but it's—" he pauses, considering his words, "you don't know enough to be either. Just do this."

Kevin carefully takes a step back, taking Andrew with him. "Okay, good," he says, though Andrew hasn't really done anything but follow after him. "And then…" Kevin takes a step forward, then to the side, then back again, Andrew following suit. "Like this."

"When do you turn?" Andrew asks, distraught by the easy way in which their steps move back and forth to the muffled sound of the music, never quite catching each other. It's an infinite push and pull, the waltzing — it fit them well. 

"When do I what?"

Clinically, Andrew grabs one of Kevin's hands and, tentative as ever, spins him around with the other hand still firm on his waist. "You turn," he clarifies. "I have seen you dance."

Kevin blinks in surprise, allowing Andrew to spin him around once more. "You paid attention to that."

"I remember things differently when I pay attention to them," is Andrew's response.

"Clearly," Kevin huffs. "Spinning is not a necessary part of the dance."

"Why do it, then?"

"I like it," he confesses, pushing Andrew through the music with gentle, steady force, in a gracious flow. "It's…" Kevin presses his lips together. "Romantic, I suppose. Charming."

"Romantic," Andrew repeats, as if the world burned his mouth. "You are still so childish."

Kevin shrugs, fidgeting with the collar of Andrew's suit. "Do you want to stop?"

Against all common sense, and maybe because the image of Kevin fussing with his suit was too much to bear, Andrew brings him closer, though not enough to touch. "No." 

He squeezes his hands around Kevin’s waist; a tentative touch. Andrew knows all of this touching — this type of touching, that is — is sooner or later going to eat him whole for as long as Kevin is not his, if he will ever be at all. He knows that he should not indulge in something that is not his to want, and yet, Andrew has never been good at restraint. 

“This the weirdest moment of my life,” Kevin confesses, letting loose of the lead as Andrew starts to get the hang of it more or less. It’s such easy trust, to let Andrew guide him around even as a beginner, and Andrew is so determined not to break it. “Never in a million years I thought I’d do this with you.”

Andrew quirks an eyebrow. “And who did you think you’d do this with?”

 _If not me, who?_ is a better question, but Andrew was never known for saying what he means.

“I don’t know,” comes Kevin’s eventual reply, his voice falling wistful. He is silent for a moment before amending, “I do know. I just think you’d find the answer silly.”

“I already find you silly.”

Despite himself, Kevin’s lips part in a brief chuckle. “Yes, you do.” He leans closer to rest his chin over the back of his own hand, still steady on top of Andrew’s shoulder. Not touching, but Andrew doesn’t think it can be comfortable for too long. “I can’t believe you’re the person I’m telling this to, but…” Andrew feels him shake his head slowly, his voice close enough to snake behind the shell of Andrew’s ear. He suppresses a shiver. “I don’t know. I always loved the idea of romance, when I was younger. I always thought one day I’d dance with a pretty stranger, and we would just… Fall in love right away. Like in movies. They wouldn’t even know my name.”

Andrew presses his lips into a tight line. “That,” he says, “is an adolescent fantasy.”

“Very much so,” Kevin easily agrees. It’s easier like this, when Andrew doesn’t have to stare right into Kevin’s face; it occurs to him Kevin might feel the same way. “And yet, you’re dancing with me. You’re indulging in my adolescent fantasy.” 

“So you shut up.”

“You know I won’t ever shut up.”

Andrew sighs, his will to rail against Kevin crumbling. He slides his hand up and down Kevin’s back in a languid flow, more for himself than it is for the other man. “Try for once. Be quiet now.”

Kevin shakes his head. “No. You _like_ me. You don’t want me to shut up. You don’t want me to be sad.”

It is, again, such an obvious thing to accuse him of — Andrew is caught wondering if Kevin expects him to deny it. “Never sad,” he lowly agrees, “not you.”

“Mhm,” Kevin replies, delicately letting his chin find the curve of Andrew’s neck instead. Skin on skin, for once — real and everlasting, Kevin’s cheek is glued to his, closer than Andrew reckons he’s ever been. “It was always going to end up like this, wasn’t it?” he wonders aloud, not really making any move to touch Andrew anymore than he already is. “It’s so _odd_ , Andrew. You’re the last person I thought I would ever do this with." Kevin huffs. “You keep surprising me, the two of you. Each time I think I'm close to understanding, something changes.”

“Shut up, Kevin.”

“No, you shut up,” he hums, “you’ve done enough talking. I’m quite done with listening, too. You have four years of listening to me to catch up with.”

Andrew sighs once more. “I am rethinking this.”

“Take it back, then.”

“No.”

“That’s what I thought.”

He brings a hand to Kevin’s nape, squeezing just to feel the tension leave Kevin’s neck and shoulders. “Shut up. It’s quiet time.”

“I’m not a baby,” Kevin replies matter-of-factly, though he melts against Andrew all the same, like a kitten held by the scruff of its neck, “you can’t send me to sleep every time you don’t want to listen to me.”

“Shut up, Kevin,” Andrew softly repeats, swaying them side to side in opposition to their previous one-two-three tempo. “Shut _up._ Just shut up. You have no filter.”

Kevin smiles against his shoulder, in spite of himself. “Clearly,” he murmurs, but doesn’t argue against Andrew’s clear orders of silence, relaxing into his hold like his spine was made of soft wax, fitting into Andrew. 

Kevin Day is the worst, most despicable man Andrew has ever come across in all of his life. The prettiest, too.

Made of extremes as Kevin is, Andrew can’t see how this could be any good for him. He holds Kevin anyways. What is a man to do?

They stay like that for as long as they can, lingering without thinking of it, before they inevitably have to part. Walking back into the ballroom is like the walk home from graduation — something changed in that room, and though Andrew can’t quite put his finger on what it is, exactly, it is known that he will never be the same, however much he tries to. It’s a disorienting feeling, one that leaves him treacherously dizzy and lightheaded, and Andrew can only quite get rid of it once he’s back in his hotel room, now a lifetime away from Kevin and the warm press of his cheeks. 

Andrew doesn’t think of it when he takes off his suit. Doesn’t think of it when he brushes his teeth. Doesn’t think of it when he answers to Neil’s texts, a nightly ritual, and doesn’t think of it when he settles back into the bed, now alone and haunted by the Kevin-shaped crease on the sheets and the stubborn scent of jasmine, tuberose and lily. Andrew thinks he can’t keep doing this, but he’ll do it anyways; until Kevin tells him no. 

Or yes.

Andrew Minyard doesn’t hope, but he not-hopes it’s a yes. The pedal is down and his eyes are closed: from here, every road leads to a fatal crash, though at least he won’t die bored.

The morning after brings him two things he hates: parting from Kevin once more, and having to take a flight to do so. Did Andrew survive this weekend? He guesses he did, but only because Kevin was there, and because Neil was waiting for him back home. 

The Stingrays will stay in Boston for two more days — granted, Andrew did not pay attention to what they were staying for as Kevin told it to him over breakfast, but he supposes it has to be something Exy-related Andrew has no interest in either way. His flight is only due hours from now, in the late afternoon, but Kevin has him packing his clothes as soon as the clock hits the lazy stretch of time of after-lunch, where neither have anything to do but a lot of things to avoid talking about. Andrew can’t quite resent it when Kevin sits across from him on the bed, folding one of Andrew’s shirts to his lap with the utmost care and delicacy in the word — so tender, isn’t he? Damn him —, expert hands smoothing over crinkled fabric.

There is no point in cornering Kevin for an answer, because years of living with him have taught Andrew that he cannot be rushed. _Would you tell a rose to bloom faster, Andrew?_ he’d say, perfectly serious, the soft depiction of distaste. Impatient as he is, Andrew would reply, _Yes,_ and it would do no good to either of them. 

Turns out he does not have to — it is as soon as Kevin is done with all of his shirts but one that he firmly announces, “It’s a yes.”

He doesn’t have to tell Andrew what he’s talking about. Andrew stills his ministrations at the other side of the bed to give him an once over, tracing Kevin’s silhouette with his eyes, before prompting, “What are your conditions, Kevin? I know you have them.”

Kevin fidgets with the shirt and frowns when he realizes he has to fold it again because of it. Andrew watches him fold it twice before speaking up again, in a softer tone, “I don’t,” he sighs out, still fidgeting with the shirt as if it could save him from his misery, “I _don’t_ want to be an afterthought, Andrew. I don’t want to be what you settle for when Neil isn’t around. I don’t want to be what Neil settles for when you’re not around. I understand it was just the two of you at first, but I’ve been second place enough in my life to know it’s not for me.” At last, he gives up on the shirt, leaning back on his hands. “I don’t want to feel... Used. Or less than.”

Andrew doesn’t frown, but it’s a close call. Kevin had voiced the fear of being second place enough for Andrew to know that this would plague him for as long as Andrew did not reassure him of the opposite, and, for once, the words were easy on his tongue; short, but nonetheless true. He places the sweatshirt he’d been packing on top of the bed before carefully striding towards Kevin, settling beside him. Andrew hovers a hand over his chin, waiting for permission, and cradles it gently with his fingers as soon as he gets it. He inspects Kevin’s face with care, angling it from one side to another, before firmly putting down, “You will not be second place.”

All Kevin does is stare, unconvinced. Andrew holds his chin a bit more firmer, bringing his face close enough for their mouths to almost touch, noses slotted against each other. He presses the tip of his thumb against Kevin’s lower lip, swiping side to side, before repeating himself, this time more forcefully, “Kevin, you will _not_ be. I will not let it happen. You believe me, yes? I take my word very seriously.”

“That’s an understatement,” Kevin huffs out, an almost-chuckle that goes straight to Andrew’s mouth, so little space between their faces that gravity could just do its job and crash their lips together if it cared to. “There are still— _so_ many other things, Andrew. I’m a handful. You know this.” 

Andrew frowns, not resuming his caress against Kevin’s mouth, perhaps the only thing keeping him from crashing onto him like a man crashes a car; slowly and then all at once. “We will figure it out. We will talk with Neil and figure it out.”

The mention of Neil makes Kevin’s shoulders relax ever so slightly. There is it again, that soft sound Kevin made when Andrew held him closer the morning before: a mix of a surprised yelp and a gasp. Andrew wonders how Neil will react to it, now that he can think of Kevin and Neil together without the burning feeling of forcing unwanted, unconsented-to attention onto Kevin — Neil won’t have the same thick apathy to protect himself from how soft it is, and it will, most likely, undo all of his barriers, because that is what Andrew had come to realize Kevin does.

Sometimes, only sometimes, he forgets that Kevin spent his first years of life with his mother, loved like he should have been for his entire life, before being shipped away to the USA to live with Tetsuji. That simple fact only made everything that happened after Kayleigh’s death a lot more painful: Kevin knew what love was and knew exactly what he lost when Evermore became his home, which made every blow and every cut twice as painful, because Kevin knew what a life away from harm felt like and he missed it dearly. Andrew wonders if the small sounds he makes are not out of surprise towards being treated gently, but recognition: as if he hadn’t expected to ever see it again. 

The thought stirred something ancient within him. “Kevin,” Andrew calls, “I want to kiss you. Yes,” he drags his thumb across the expanse of Kevin’s lower lip, feeling the softness push back against his fingertip, “or no?”

Kevin stares at him for a second, then at the thumb pressed against his lip, then at Andrew again.

“Yes,” he replies, tilting his face towards Andrew like a sunflower opening wide for the sun. 

Andrew studies his face, from the long eyelashes — longer than anyone else’s he knows, and it’s a shame, really, because Neil would love them — to the full lips, before tucking a stray hair against Kevin’s ear and murmuring, “Lie back.”

Slowly, Kevin leans back on his elbows, staring up at Andrew with a curious glint on his eyes, as if sizing him up. It’s an awful image Andrew will never be able to quite get rid of, not with this memory of his, and he needs a moment to test his restraints. “Where is it okay to touch?” he asks, willing his teeth to not grit against each other furiously. 

Every single person in the Exy industry wants something from Kevin Day, and yet, and yet — Andrew Minyard is the one who gets to have him. It is an undoubtedly unfair twist of destiny: better people could love Kevin, surely, but now they’ll have to go through Andrew first, and Neil second. 

Kevin tilts his head to the side in curiosity, but does not retrieve the extended olive branch of trust that had him leaning back onto the bed. “Everywhere, if it’s gentle.”

Andrew just stares at him, unmoved. It makes Kevin quirk an eyebrow. “What?” Then, realization: “Oh. You mean— Oh, from the waist up.”

“That’s fine,” comes Andrew’s immediate response, not missing a heartbeat. He does not want to delve into Kevin’s extensive and intricate struggle with giving consent at the moment, but he surely won’t have him thinking Andrew is disappointed in any way. After a brief moment of assessment, Andrew climbs next to him, positioning himself behind Kevin and bringing his head to his own lap. 

It’s an awkward angle, he will admit, but Kevin’s confession from last night urged Andrew to do something at least a little bit romantic for him, however vile and childish he thought such a wish to be. It wasn’t quite what Andrew originally had in mind, either, but all such thoughts disappeared the second Kevin told him he wanted nothing but kisses, and this — this is nice, too, he decides. Kevin looks just as delectable from under Andrew.

He smiles up at Andrew. “Hi.”

“Shut up,” Andrew replies out of habit. “Yes or no?”

Kevin’s smile grows bigger. “Yes.” 

For once, gravity does its job perfectly — Andrew cradles Kevin’s face in his hands and leans in, their lips crashing together almost scarily right. 

Andrew, for one, wishes he had Neil’s way with words: he wants to think that the world started and ended with Kevin’s lips, that he was a haunting Andrew would never get rid of, that the very touch of his mouth had raised the death from deep within Andrew and he would never be the same again. All of these things are true, for all that it’s worth, but Andrew’s only thought as he deepens the kiss is, ridiculously, _I don’t want to stop doing this. Not now, not ever._

Andrew would surely never live this down, not if Neil has any saying in it, but in the moment he found that he did not quite care. As long as Kevin stood there, mouth wide open and soft for Andrew to kiss, every single one of his acts would be suspended: a point of no return for every lie Andrew ever told, and he did not quite resent it as much as he resented the moment he’d have to pull away.

Kevin pulls himself up to sit face to face with Andrew, not breaking the kiss as he places one of his hands on the empty spaces beside Andrew’s knees. Kevin does not touch nor does he try to; he just lets his free hand tentatively hang between their chests, a silent invitation. Andrew breaks the liplock briefly to stare at it as he’s done countless times before, taking in the sight of the fine-as-earth hand he wanted to keep for himself, before lacing their fingers together, a soft squeeze to it that feels a bit more like recognition than reassurance. 

It is, of course, not that Andrew has not held hands before. Of course he has — with Neil, a simple touch that reaffirmed what they already knew: that they belonged together, and that people could see it —, but, granted, he never had both the handholding and the kissing at the same time: it occured to Andrew that he hadn’t expected Kevin to be this soft, but that he should have. It takes a special type of person, a soft one, to give so much of himself to others with such unrelenting and blind faith. 

The familiar scarring of Kevin’s hand feels like a soft contrast to the smoothness of Andrew's fingertips, and, for one or twenty lifetimes, he does not want to let go. Andrew uses his other, free hand to pet Kevin's chin, earning himself a gentle sound that was not so much out of surprise as much as it was approval. He thought he could do this for hours on end, and still not get tired. 

Against Andrew’s mouth, Kevin gently prompts, “I don’t think I’ll ever be okay with you holding me down by the wrists. But this,” — he squeezes Andrew’s hand — “could be your way to make sure I won’t touch. You’ll still have control over where my hands are, but it’s… Less triggering. For me.”

Andrew rests his forehead against Kevin’s. “Yes,” he replies, “okay. Yes.”

Touch for Kevin, he realized, is not about touching in itself: it's more about the thought behind it, the implication of being adored, desired, cherished, made real through wanting. Andrew has never thought of it that way before — feeling loved was always a consequence, of course, how couldn't it be with Neil?, but it has never been purely about feeling like it seems to be for Kevin. Andrew was used to touching to make someone lose control, but with Kevin it seemed to work the contrary: every touch made him real, made him strong, made him loved. He gained life under Andrew's hands, and it was perhaps the gentlest type of power Andrew has ever seen.

With every kiss; _give me love._ And Andrew kept giving it. And it never ran out.

It never ran out.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Andrew only breaks the news to Neil on his cab ride on the way to Palmetto, curled next to the door with a happiness so big inside of him he could swear it would kill him one way or another. Happiness, Andrew found, hurt — the fear of it being taken away from him was perhaps just as intense as the desperation he held onto it with, and both were too heavy to carry, though the soldiered on. 

Kissing Kevin and saying goodbye to Kevin: a world of contrasts, and yet Andrew had never felt so lucky to even have something to say goodbye to at all. 

**Andrew:** _K said yes. I kissed him. We will talk when he comes for Halloween._

Neil doesn’t even take his time typing. 

**Neil:** _Damn it, Minyard. Stop one-upping me. That’s one more kiss than I got._

Andrew rolls his eyes, promptly avoiding the memories of the thousand or so kisses he got from Kevin earlier today, if only so he could bask in them later.

**Andrew:** _Shut up. Maybe if you had a little bit more of an attitude you would have gotten that kiss you want so much already._

**Neil is typing…**

**Neil:** _You shut up. Get here already._

Despite himself, the upwards tug at the corner of Andrew’s lips is not scorn. 

**Andrew:** _Bossy._

He pockets his phone once more, watching the night eat away at the city and willing himself to think of anything else that wasn’t Neil, Kevin, or the two of them. Harder of a task than it looks like, surely, but Andrew’s sheer stubbornness could sink ships just as fast as it could sail them.

For now, the thought of them will have to do. For now, it has to be enough. 

“You look like the cat who got the cream,” is the first thing that comes out of Neil’s mouth when Andrew appears through the door, late enough in the night for him and Robin to already be in their sleeping clothes. It’s so quiet in the dorm, tonight: Andrew’s shoulders relax at the peaceful, familiar sight of them, coexisting safely between these four walls. Home, Andrew thinks, can look like anything. 

Andrew is not smiling — his face is hardly giving anything out at all, in fact, but Neil always notices.

“I suppose that's the feeling of kissing a major celebrity,” Neil lowly tells him, minding his tone so Robin doesn’t overhear them from her spot at the kitchen counter, a book propped over the surface in front of her, “I can only wish.”

He offers Neil an unmoved stare, dumping his luggage against the floor and stripping off of his airport-ridden jacket and shoes at the door. Andrew doesn’t beeline for Neil in account of that comment only — instead, he drags his feet towards the kitchen, the sound of the fridge opening startling Robin out of her book-induced trance.

Her eyes find Andrew almost immediately, reading glasses crooked to the side and braids now fully taken out, giving space to Robin’s natural hair: tight and dark curls falling over her shoulders and forehead, fuzzy strays sticking out sporadically. Andrew, who did not like many things, liked Robin’s hair when she let it down — it made her look younger, less restrained. Her curls were much tighter than Andrew’s loose pattern, and he found them to be endearing in a way only small children can be. 

Robin smiles, opening her mouth to greet him, but something stops her before she can do it, her masterless train of thought coming to an abrupt halt. “Andrew,” she says in lieu of a greeting, “did you switch perfumes with Kevin?”

“No,” is his reply. 

Her frown deepens. _Damn_ Robin and her superhuman sense of smell — Andrew should’ve gone straight to showering the moment he stepped into the dorms, and he would have hadn’t it been for Neil’s distracting behavior. She beckons for Andrew to come closer, “Come here. I could _swear_ you smell just like him.”

From the living room, Neil snorts. Andrew glares holes at the back of his head before reluctantly complying, approaching Robin with two small steps. She leans closer to him with curious eyes before giving out her verdict: “This _is_ Kevin’s perfume. You smell like you rolled around in his clothes or something.”

Andrew presses his lips into a tight line. “Or something.” He is not fond of lying, even less so to Robin, so he does the second best thing and evades from her implicit questioning. “You are imagining things because you miss him. You should ask your parents to get you evaluated at a psychiatrist.”

“If anything, _you_ are the one I would ask to get me evaluated at a psychiatrist,” Robin corrects him, pointing a finger in his direction. “And, for your information, it _is_ Kevin’s perfume. Have you stolen it from him or what?”

The answer, of course, is that Andrew spent the last two nights and three days practically glued to Kevin’s side, and that just a few hours ago he’d been all up in Kevin’s personal space, but he can’t tell Robin that without exposing the intricate machinery of their relationship, so he clams his mouth shut.

“I reiterate: get your head checked, because you are imagining things,” he says, at last, before sneaking out of the kitchen, heading straight to the bedroom for a well overdue shower. 

Unfortunately, Andrew’s peace is short lived. It takes Neil no less than two seconds to trail after Andrew with a shit-eating grin. 

When the bedroom door is closed behind him, his grin widens and sharpens; all teeth. “She’s right, you know,” he points out, “you do smell just like him.”

Gruffly, Andrew ignores his observation to grab new clothes from the closet. It does not deter Neil any as he continues, “You’ve been getting softer, Minyard.”

“And you have probably Pavlov-ed yourself with Kevin’s perfume,” Andrew dryly replies, roughly throwing clothes over the bed to find his sleeping shirt, the one that is not also soaked in Kevin’s perfume. “Like a dog. You smell it and you become immediately insufferable.”

Neil, despite himself, lets out a laugh. For some reason beyond him, Andrew is well aware of just how funny Neil thinks he is — he lets him know time and again. “A dog is new. What was the last animal you called me? A possum?”

“Raccoon,” Andrew corrects him. His fingertips touch the sleeping shirt he’s been searching for, and he grasps it with an unnecessary amount of force, throwing it over his shoulder. “Your tastes have since upgraded, so you have become a dog.” 

“Well,” Neil starts, probably deciding midway that whatever he was about to say would not be worth it. “Don’t I get a kiss for setting you up for the trip, at least? I think I deserve one.”

Andrew turns to him almost immediately. “Shut up.” 

“Shut _me_ up.”

Insufferable. Andrew walks over to him anyways, fisting his hands on his shirt and bringing Neil down for a kiss that felt just as much of a second nature as picking up a racquet or a glass of whiskey; a treat Andrew could have every day and still not tire out of. He has a thousand addictions to kick — this one, and the one from before, are okay. These two can stay, because the rush is worth the price Andrew pays for the both of them. 

Neil’s hands trail to his hair absentmindedly, toying with the shorter strands at the back, and Andrew can’t help but compare it to what he knows about Kevin: he’d called Kevin desperate for attention before, but he did not kiss like it the way Neil did. In fact, Neil was unrelenting for it — they matched in eagerness, but strayed when it came to intent. Kevin chased Andrew’s mouth like he wanted to be swallowed whole, but Neil kissed him like he was the one who wanted to trap Andrew inside his mouth forever, a lazy yet insistent trip of fighting for power and not knowing when to give it up. 

There is sweetness to Kevin's fragility the same way there is sweetness to Neil's relentlessness; Andrew still does not know how to cope with the fact that he gets to have both at the same time. It is, unnecessary to say, much more than he has ever thought he would get in life.

“You,” Andrew murmurs against Neil’s lips, “are smelling him, aren’t you?”

Neil smiles, pressing another kiss to Andrew’s mouth before fully letting go. “Go take your shower.”

“You have not answered my question.”

“And I will not. Go shower.”

Begrudgingly, Andrew does, though he glares at Neil throughout his entire three-steps path to the bathroom. Neil has the _audacity_ to smile back at him. 

Men are an ill-advised vice he finds himself loving every now and then, in spite of his best judgement. Andrew knows firsthand there are worse addictions to have, but that does not make Kevin and Neil easier to palate: both are impossible to ignore and, God bless his soul, to resist. For all of his wit, Andrew continues to be the same bad liar he’s always been — he’d been unable to hide that he wanted both, and earned himself kisses for his honesty.

It’s not that bad, sometimes, to say what you mean. It’s not bad at all.

Granted, he's in a terrifically reasonable mood for the rest of the week, or so he's told time and again by Robin and Nicky. Perhaps a part of him, harsh and sharp and stubborn, still held disbelief over Andrew's ability to be gentle, and having Kevin trust him with something as fragile as himself has made Andrew reconsider everything he knew about his own character, shaking off the dust of the ancient self-loathing in him that claimed Andrew would never amount to anything worth loving. That, added to the twin passions he has made out of Kevin and Neil, had put Andrew in what Betsy would perhaps call the best, most enjoyable moment of his personal life so far.

A game they win and two more contract offers later, Halloween sneaks around the corner with the ease of a slowly dwindling-down year carreting into a cozy autumn. Andrew inevitably has to drive his lot to buy costumes, Robin having been granted the privilege of picking Kevin’s costume due to the his lack of time to pick one himself, two nights before Halloween, and is more or less convinced by Nicky to buy an angel halo for when they go to Eden’s, though Neil profusely refuses to wear the opposite demon horns tiara. Robin chooses herself what Andrew thinks is a pirate costume, but might be wrong, and, likewise, does not tell them what she chose for Kevin. Aaron chooses an obnoxiously inaccurate doctor costume he complains about all the way home, and Nicky buys a bright pink cowboy hat Andrew has to talk himself out of burning the moment they return to Fox Tower. It’s a silly, soft life in the aftermaths of the war their lives had become in the past. 

More or less, life goes on: Neil disappears into the bedroom to answer Kevin’s call after their Friday game, and Andrew and Robin sit together on the couch with a bowl of sweet popcorn between them, the adrenaline of their match dying down into a charming exhaustion Andrew knows he should enjoy less for a man so uninterested in Exy. 

It’s late, and television is made of old Halloween movie reruns now, though Andrew can appreciate their unmistakable trashiness and admit that they’re just bad enough to be good. Robin likes these movies the most, for some reason — the ones with singing blue people and grotesque witches hunched over cauldrons of green fog, an offense to the most narcissistic cinephiles if Andrew had ever seen one. All in all, it doesn’t quite matter what the movie is about; it’s just entertaining enough for him to lean back into the couch and watch it, licking the sugar out of his fingertips. 

By the time it ends, he is surprised to see Robin still awake at the other end of the couch, her hair now worked into a low ponytail and her face the depiction of distraughtness. Andrew finds himself at odds with how youthful Robin looks, from her soft eyebrows to her round nose, every inch of her face a map of the moon. For one, Andrew never quite thought people like Robin existed in the world — people with no cruelty to them, that is; people who looked up at the sky in the early morning and late evening and gasped, mostly to themselves, _‘look at the moon!’_ no matter what the moon looks like; people whose favorite movies were trashy Halloween ones and whose affection never seemed to waver, even in the face of extreme loss and misery.

There is not a single ill-intentioned bone in Robin Cross’ body, as far as Andrew is concerned, and he wants to keep it that way. He needs to, at least: if only so he could look at her and let himself be reminded that she is not the only one of her kind. 

“Andrew,” Robin calls, bringing her knees to her chest. Her shirt is ridiculously oversized — Andrew was there when she bought it just to spite Neil, who had loudly stated it was an ugly t-shirt the second they walked into the store. “Can I invite Gigi for Halloween?”

That grabs Andrew’s attention, pulling his gaze out of the ending credits of the movie. He motions for her to continue. 

Robin plays with one of the longer curls of her hair as she hums, “I have no good reason to invite her except that I want to.”

“Okay,” Andrew replies shortly. “Why do you want to?”

She studies him for a long moment, unmoved. “We are not having this conversation. I am _not_ telling you about my love life.”

If Andrew was the type of person who laughed, he thinks this would be the moment he’d fight back a string of strident cackles. “That is good to know. And not what I asked.”

“I want to because—” Robin sighs, stressing her confusion with her hands. Andrew wonders if Kevin got the habit from her, or if it was the other way around. “I’ve never— I don’t know how to talk to girls. All my life, I’ve always been afraid that I was coming off— creepy, or… Or weird… And Gigi is just... I have no good reason to give you, Andrew. I just like her.”

“Do you trust her?” is what Andrew replies. Curt and dry, but betraying his nonchalance all the same — he wouldn’t ask if he didn’t care, something that they both know very well. 

“Yes,” Robin’s answer comes, immediate. “She’s— everything with her is an event. And it just feels so _normal_. She treats me like she’d treat just another girl her age. I never thought I could have this before.”

 _I never thought I could have this before._ Andrew thinks of Kevin’s delicate hands in contrast with Neil’s stubborn ones, and understands — more than anything, he _understands._ Neil was right: he’d been getting softer. 

But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing: to be more like Robin, like Nicky, like Kevin — it can’t be so bad. 

“Bring her, then,” Andrew tells her, at last. He settles back into the couch, reaching for the remote once more. 

And that’s that — Robin looks at him like he hung the moon, a smile spreading on her lips, and Andrew is at least a thousand years older than his nineteen year-old self, though, for once, the change is good. 

Kevin drives up to Palmetto in the late afternoon of the day after, unusually late for a man who makes a point out of always being on time, though it gives them a leeway to prepare for their long overdue conversation regarding their relationship and what to make of it now that Kevin has told them yes. Andrew is not stupid — he knows they won’t have these discussions today, not with how Neil is all but pacing around the room in nerves of seeing Kevin after his feelings have been exposed, still riding the high of Kevin’s yes. Andrew is not soft, but he won’t bring up their situation until after Kevin and Neil get to have their own moment: it’s only fair that they get to enjoy each other the way Andrew got to enjoy the two of them during the past week. 

Andrew is many bad things, see, but he is not selfish. At least not with them. 

When Kevin calls to announce that he’s gotten to Fox Tower’s parking lot, the three of them — Robin, Andrew and Neil, that is — take the elevator to meet him at the entrance, Neil’s pile of nerves only rubbing off on Andrew ever so slightly at the sight of Kevin’s car standing no less than a few parking spots away from them. It’s been just a week since Andrew last saw him, but it’s been more for Neil; even more for Robin. He felt, at sudden, incredibly greedy for how much he wanted Kevin close: Andrew had had him before, and somehow still wanted more. 

They watch as Kevin gets out of the car and stretches out his long limbs, completely unaware of their presence. It’s ridiculous, really, how endearing it is to see Kevin exist when he thinks no one is looking — his shoulders relax and his face becomes softer, perhaps even boyish, as he drags his bag from the passenger seat, slinging it over his shoulder and fidgeting with his keys for at least one entire minute before locking the car. Kevin only notices he’s being observed after he takes his eyes off of his own keys, breaking the fidget to stare right into them like a deer caught in headlights. His face burns a soft red as he realizes they’ve been looking at him this whole time, and he bashfully shoves his keys into his pocket when he makes his way towards them.

“God,” Robin murmurs, “he’s so—”

“Stupid?” Andrew offers.

“Infuriating?” Neil asks.

“Endearing,” she amends, ignoring their additions, “he’s endearing.”

Neil opens his mouth to reply, but clams it shut once he realizes Kevin is already in hearing range. Andrew does not greet him with anything but a brief glance in his direction, though he takes Kevin’s bag from him the moment he’s close enough to do so, slinging it over his own shoulder. It’s not much different from how they were in Andrew’s freshman year, but this time Kevin offers him a mildly surprised, “Oh, thank you,” that has Andrew biting his tongue back. 

Andrew had expected him and Neil to be somewhat awkward with each other for this meeting, but he should’ve known by now that they work in a completely different way that Andrew thinks they do — the first thing Kevin does after he thanks Andrew is turn to Neil and prompt him about Matt’s last game, which is more than enough to keep the pair of them strongly entertained all the way to the dorms, Robin and Andrew trailing behind their figures as they excitedly discuss every second of the match. Andrew only pays mild attention to their banter, uninterested enough as he was, but nearly trips on his feet as Neil tentatively presses a hand to the small of Kevin’s back, his palm fitting the space Andrew’s had been just a week ago. If Kevin notices it, he does not deem it worthy enough of an acknowledgement, continuing to rant off about a foul shot from the team opposite to Matt’s, but Andrew can’t quite get his eyes off of it until they have to part into the dorms. 

Robin physically drags Kevin into the bedroom to see the costume she chose for him, leaving Andrew and Neil alone in the living room for a short-lived moment.

“Staring,” Neil hums as soon as they’re out of the room, offering Andrew a raised eyebrow. 

Andrew squints his eyes at him, dropping Kevin’s bag against the couch. “Where did that come from?”

Neil shrugs nonchalantly. “I’ve seen you do it enough to him to know that he likes it. What’s the matter?”

“There is,” Andrew slowly puts down, “no matter.” 

He does not want — or has — to tell Neil that the sight of them together was so crashingly right that it startled Andrew for a moment, but by now Neil can read him like a book; he knows what Andrew is saying even when Andrew is silent. “Oh,” Neil’s eyebrow arches even higher. “Weren’t you being annoying about me smelling him on you just last week?”

“Shut up.”

The corner of Neil’s lips tug into a smile. “I love it when you have to bite your tongue, did you know that?”

Andrew opens his mouth to reply, but is cut short by the door to the bedroom being slammed open, Robin coming through of it with a grin the size of Jupiter. “Oh, this is going to be _so_ good,” she singsongs mischievously. Kevin trails after her with a pirate hat on his head, looking as confused by it as a cat with a random object thrown over its head. Robin slips her hand into the crook of his elbow, pulling him towards the living room to show off the hat. “Isn’t this the most ridiculous pirate hat you've ever seen?”

It is, quite frankly, the most ridiculous pirate hat Andrew has ever seen — with a feather attached to the top and bright rhinestones adorning the burgundy material, Kevin looked like a model straight from a Party City catalogue, the long-ish strands of his hair framing his face haphazardly. The black chin strap holding the hat in place is tightly placed against Kevin’s skin, and Andrew watches in slow motion as Neil reaches for it just to pull it back and have it slap Kevin’s skin when it bobs into place.

“What the fuck,” Kevin yelps, batting Neil’s hand away. “What the fuck did you do that for?”

Neil just stares up at him with the same look that he uses to stare at Andrew — a mix of undivided attention and extensive intrigue, as if Kevin was the oddest yet most interesting creature he'd ever seen. Andrew found the scene to be impossible to look away from: Neil, with his scrutinizing stare, and Kevin, softly basking in the attention, an apocalyptic tango of blue and green. “You looked stupid,” is Neil’s ultimate reply, which Andrew knows is not a lie, but not the entire truth either. 

In Neil code, it means something quite like _I wanted to kiss you, and I couldn’t at the moment. This was the next best thing._

Kevin huffs, fidgeting with the cord. “Robin, this is ridiculous.”

“Yes!” she excitedly agrees, her smile growing twice its size. “And the best part— wait for it!” Robin reaches into the bedroom for a second before stepping out of it with a red bandana wrapped around the top of her head, an imitation of what Andrew supposes is a pirate scarf. “We’re going to look ridiculous _together_!”

“She got me a fake sword,” Kevin informs them, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Granted, it looks historically accurate, but still.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to get you a hook,” Robin counter arguments, tightening her bandana. Their banter was, at once, childish and amusing — Andrew found himself deeply entertained, and perhaps even endeared. “Okay, I knew Andrew wouldn’t let me get you a hook. You’d stab yourself in the eye. Or someone else.”

“How sharp is this sword, exactly?” Andrew asks, eyeing Kevin suspiciously. He makes a noise of indignance. 

Robin motions dismissively. “Not sharp at all. If you were any fun, you would know that pirate swords are flat at the tip.”

“Hm,” he replies. The chance of Kevin stabbing himself in the eye with a sword that is flat is significantly low, so Andrew lets it slide. 

Kevin physically cringes. “I suppose,” he starts, “that there could have been worse costumes.”

“Surely,” Neil agrees. “If Nicky were in charge of your costume he’d pick a sexy firefighter. Or a sexy doctor. Or a sexy priest.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“It’s just an assumption.”

Andrew quirks an eyebrow in his direction. “An assumption,” he echoes. 

Antagonizing Neil over Kevin, he came to realize, is rather amusing — “Yes, Andrew, an assumption,” Neil hums, “you know assumptions. They’re hunches you make based on pre-existing knowledge, see. I’m sure you’ve heard of them before.”

“Okay,” Robin cuts through their banter, tugging on Kevin’s sweatshirt. “You two are _weird_ today. Kevin, let’s give them some space to talk it out.” 

Kevin snorts, making to follow Robin, but Neil grabs his wrist before he can be tugged away. “Actually, let’s not,” he disagrees in the same tone, pulling Kevin towards them protectively. “What’s with you two and leaving me and Andrew alone?”

“Andrew and I,” Andrew corrects him.

Neil offers him an unimpressed stare that makes Kevin’s shoulders shake with laughter. Both reactions please Andrew greatly. Robin quirks an amused eyebrow in his direction. “We would include you in our conversations if you two didn’t refuse to wear costumes,” she answers, though she doesn’t look any less pleased by being with the three of them. 

“I have a costume,” Andrew points out, deadpan.

“A halo is not a costume, it’s an accessory.”

“You would not wear it out on the street.”

“You don’t know the things I would wear out on the street.”

Andrew purses his lips. “ _Touché._ ”

Robin’s grin is wide and victorious. Her front teeth have a slight gap between them, barely noticeable if you’re not paying attention. Not for the first time, Andrew thinks she looks just her age. 

Not for the first time, Andrew feels just his age, too.

And it’s a good thing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see u on november 30th for the first chapter of kevins pov :)


	7. lips so good i forget my name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw mentions of sexual harrassment*
> 
> *unfortunately everything about the riko/kevin dynamic is canon and pulled from the author's extra content. i suppose the least i can do is try to acknowledge and process it in a way where its not so normalized kevin doesnt even realize its actual harrassment 
> 
> also i love aaron

Kevin Day never forgets a friendly face. 

Which is to say — for a man whose most insistent memories were consumed by awfully wry smirks and fists heavier than bombs, Kevin treasured every last bit of kindness he’s gotten over the years, however big or small, well-intentioned or purely accidental, oftentimes even unpremeditated. 

It was his unwillingness to forget David Wymack’s face that freed him from Tetsuji Moriyama’s tight clutch; his overdue yet nostalgic remembrance of Neil Josten’s face that kept him in the Foxes; his attachment to Jean Moreau’s grey eyes that tipped him over on signing with the Stingrays; his friendship with Robin Cross that persuaded him back to Andrew’s lot. Kevin could never quite forget the sting of rejection, but down the years those memories had gotten more or less overpowered by the friendly faces, which, in spite of not being many, have gotten Kevin through more than he could possibly say. 

It comes as no surprise, then, that he could perfectly describe the face of each player from the South Carolina Stingrays with his eyes closed, based on memory alone: from River’s almond-shaped eyes and sharp, angular cheekbones to Sidney’s small, faerie-like face, Kevin remembered everything — they were the faces of infinite goodwill, a memory Kevin would never forget as long as he lived, an ever-filling bowl that would never spill. He clung to their image, their gentle hands and teasing voices, because he’d been too afraid to let them go: because no one else would offer him such abrupt, unexpected kindness without asking for anything in return.

And then came — Andrew, with that haunted look in his eyes, making horror out of something as simple as desire. Kevin did not understand much of Andrew’s world, but he knew he wanted to be a part of it, and that had once been enough. To just be Kevin, standing a few steps or miles away from Andrew, had been enough to ease the blurred lines of their relationship, the motions of them merging into something less deadly and more steady; still brutally intense, but otherwise much softer. Kevin thought, even if for one minute, that they had finally gotten the hang of being friends.

That is, until Andrew grabbed his face and smashed their mouths together. Kevin knows as little about friendship as he knows about romance, but he is rather sure that platonic relationships don’t include that much tongue.

But Andrew was — kind, in his own way. His hands delivered the thoughts his mouth couldn’t say, and Kevin, who never once imagined he’d enjoy it as much as he did, found himself incredibly charmed by the contrast in the roughness of his lips and the gentleness of his fingertips, touching without claiming; marking; bruising. It showed that Andrew could learn how to love what he can’t own, can’t control, and it made hope grow in Kevin’s chest like Japanese knotweed, impossible to cut out. Andrew’s affection was a fickle, abrupt thing Kevin had felt before, but never so intimately: it made Kevin question the things he believed, both about himself and the world, but mostly about Andrew. 

He could learn. God, he _could_ learn — Kevin just did not think Andrew would want to do it for him. 

Crux of the matter: Andrew would not fight for him if Kevin did not give himself out on a dinner plate, perfectly pliant, palatable and cut into pieces for his paladar. An irrevocable truth, that is something Kevin learned years ago, set in stone and unchanging in spite of his wishes. 

Neil — Neil is a different, more complex case. If Kevin knows more or less how Andrew works, Neil is an entirely new machinery, math Kevin would never even get close to understanding: his only certainty is that Neil will follow wherever Andrew goes, whatever path he decides to take. If Kevin is right, though he is often not, neither of the two would fight for him. They will have Kevin controlled, restrained, in a leash, or not at all — it’s foolish to think otherwise, because that is the only way anyone ever wants Kevin. 

Kevin, too much for everyone; too much of this and not enough of that; unbalanced, unwanted, flawed, a toy whose tricks are only amusing for a little while. Kevin this, Kevin that — everyone has an opinion about Kevin Day, everyone wants something from Kevin Day, everyone thinks Kevin Day is of public ownership, passed from hand to hand, something to be used, kept, and forgotten. A cardigan under someone’s bed — an old toy. Passed upon. The Exy industry’s family heirloom: don’t you think you would like him better if his hair was shorter, if he was skinnier, if he were lighter, if his nose was smaller, if he looked whiter, if he was faster, if he was slower, if he was smarter, if he was dumber? Don’t you think you, too, could love him if he was just like you imagine he should be?

Old self-beliefs, old habits. His therapist, Perris, doesn’t let him dwindle on it nearly as often as Kevin would like to — don’t your friends love you? Doesn’t Robin call you every night? Doesn’t River take you out every other day? Doesn’t Yonah make you laugh? Doesn’t Jean cook you dinner? Doesn’t Neil text you all the time? Doesn’t Daniel lend you books? —, and, in spite of himself, he can acknowledge that it’s true; that there are people in his life who can love him without controlling him now, and that he should strive to keep it like that. 

_I don’t think anyone could love me without having to cut me up in bite-sized pieces,_ Kevin told Perris in one of their earliest sessions. A truth he had since fallen out of believing, if only because of River’s superhumanly big heart, constantly poking Kevin on the side and urging him to _stop pretending, stop putting up an act, it’s just me, I know you._

Perris’ answer had been almost obscenely immediate: _Taking space for yourself is not the same as pushing someone away, Kevin._

He’s right, of course: for how long Kevin had stood, quiet and still, as the blows fell upon him? For how long had he made himself the smallest he could so as to not take up the space of someone other? It felt like an obvious truth, to say that Kevin had a right to live in this world without having harm done to him in the name of his mere existence, but the hardest lessons to learn are often the boldest — to _know_ something and to practice it are two very different things.

Liberation is only dangerous when overdue. Kevin’s first taste of rebellion had been fleeing the Nest, but his first gulp of it — tall and large, with gusto, dripping from his chin like fruit bursting with juice — was railing against Andrew’s control: delightful liberation that it is to not just destroy the leash, but the man holding it, and the people who allowed it to happen. Was Kevin out to kill? Unlikely, but freedom that is so long overdue can take up the form of aggression much more easily than it can take the form of pacifism. 

What happens to a man when he hits the very end of his shackles?

He loses it.

He goes apeshit. 

He drinks, cries, yells, shakes fists, points fingers, pushes away the scraps he’d been fed up until now, the ones he’d been obliged to crawl around and say thank you for. 

He bares his teeth: bites the hand that feeds him but only if he rolls around like a calf born for slaughter, like a pet, claws his way up to the light, becomes feral in the way only a trained dog gone-mad can be. People aren’t born rabid or berserk, and even less so was Kevin; when you inscite punishment and shame, you cause what you dread. When you raise your hand to a limping man, you father the violence in his bones — he will learn how to send you away gagging, or sobbing if you’re soft-hearted, because anger is a cycle and fury is the cradle of rebellion. No two men are the same after a fist is raised. 

And they weren’t the same. They would never be the same people that they were, then, and the change is good. Kevin does not want Andrew from two years ago, but he thinks he can want Andrew from now, if he keeps his hands to himself and his ownership out of Kevin’s way. 

Point in case:

“If you touch even a single glass of alcohol tonight I’m not letting you anywhere near my mouth,” Kevin tells him, crossing his arms and leaning his hip against the doorway of the bedroom. He was supposed to be ready, granted, but Robin left around five minutes ago to ask Nicky for a bottle of foundation to hide Kevin’s tattoo, and Kevin’s attention span is fickle as it is. “Both of you,” he pointedly turns his head towards Neil, in the living room. 

Andrew grumbles something Kevin doesn’t hear nor understand, pulling the exact same pair of black shirt and jeans he wears to every other event. Kevin thought he looked much more handsome in his suit, but could acknowledge that Andrew had his brutal attractiveness to make up for his lack of flavor in regards to fashion. He squints at him. “Andrew, I’m serious. You said I could trust you. It’s a _no._ No drinking.”

“I said _fine, Kevin,_ ” Andrew replies, standing in front of his wardrobe and craning his neck to stare Kevin down. Doesn’t work — Kevin is not scared of him and Andrew looks funny with his face all contracted in seriousness. “No drinking.”

Kevin stares at him. The entire point of— _them_ is that Kevin has to trust they won’t overstep his boundaries, but it’s harder than it looks like with the twin memories of Riko and Tetsuji at the very back of his neck, crawling up his throat. At last, he decides on trusting that Andrew would not lie to him about something like this; he will believe it when he sees it, but can accept that no amount of pestering can change Andrew’s mind if he plans to do the opposite of what Kevin asks of him. 

From his spot at the living room couch, already dressed and — painstakingly — handsome, Neil hums out, “No drinking,” in agreement. For all that it’s worth, Kevin could grab him by the collar of his shirt and kiss him now, but since Robin could walk into the door about anytime, he decides not to push his luck and, instead, go finish getting dressed. 

The costume is… Better than what Kevin expected. Dark slacks and a frilly white blouse is not too far from what Kevin would dress himself with, granted, and the hat, though tacky and obnoxious, will do a great job of covering most of his face. The only unusual part of it is the corset he’s supposed to squeeze himself into for the full pirate look, but Kevin is nothing if not a big old vanity: he is instantly pleased by anything even merely old-looking, and there is nothing he’d like to wear more. All in all, Robin picked the right costume — Kevin is torn between asking her if he is that obvious of a person, or if she just pays attention. 

Either way: he slips into the costume easily, adjusting the collar in front of the bathroom mirror. The collar in question ends in an intricate lacing that stops just at the very end of his sternum, exposing a charmingly small part of his chest, and it takes Kevin an admittedly shameful five minutes to finally get the lacing right. It’s probably what tips him over on asking for help with the corset in the first place — one look at the metal grommets and the lace they’re supposed to sustain has Kevin giving up on doing it himself almost immediately, unlocking the bathroom door and sliding into the living room.

Andrew is nowhere to be seen, probably showering, but Neil hasn’t moved from his spot at the couch, still dismantled on top of the cushions like a ragdoll. His eyes rake through Kevin lazily as he steps into the room, but it’s not enough to get Neil to get up, it seems.

“Get up,” Kevin commands, wrapping the untied corset around his own torso. “Lace this for me. You have steady hands.”

A smile tugs at the corners of Neil’s mouth, teasing. “And you don’t?”

“Not when I can’t see what I’m doing,” he replies matter-of-factly. It was the truth, but Kevin hadn’t considered that it implied having Neil’s hands on him until then — an odd feeling, granted, but not unpleasant; never unpleasant. Something tightens at the bottom of his stomach in expectancy. “Don’t make me ask Andrew. He’s going to—” Kevin motions vaguely.

Neil quirks an eyebrow. “Going to what?”

“Tie it too tight. Andrew can only overcommit. Can you come here, now?”

“You could be nicer.”

“You could be more useful.”

Biting down on a smile, Neil slowly drags himself out of the couch and into Kevin’s personal bubble. His hands are firm when he takes the lacing in both his hands, but his voice gentles considerably as he hums, “Tell me if it’s too tight. Don’t be an asshole and get yourself hurt to prove a point.”

“Is hypocrisy a hobby of yours or is it more of a full-time job type of situation?” Kevin asks aloud, earning himself a harsh tug on the lacing from Neil, who stood behind him. It’s not enough to cut off his circulation, but Kevin is nothing if not dramatic — “I’ll kill you if you do that again.”

Neil lowly chuckles, nimble fingers starting out the lacing. His fingers are quick and delicate, but Kevin knows he’s not imagining the slight hesitation to them, unsure and almost— affected. “What is this supposed to be for?” Neil asks what Kevin suspects is an attempt to distract himself. Then, more carefully: “Doesn’t it hurt?”

“No,” Kevin replies, “it’s not supposed to hurt if you do it right. Don’t tie it too tight.”

Tentatively, Neil tugs at the strings that control the lacing. “Is this enough?”

It’s snug against Kevin’s waist, shorter than most and of more or less low quality due from being part of a costume. He presses a hand to the front of the corset, feeling it too loose, and replies, “No. Try tighter.”

Neil complies, adding more strength to the pull. It makes Kevin’s breath hitch, a natural response, but Neil stops immediately at the reaction, loosening the strings. “Kevin,” he warns. 

Kevin almost cranes his neck back to glare at him, but decides against it. “It’s not going to hurt me. You’re going soft on me, Josten.”

“I’m not,” Neil retorts, his voice falling quiet. Kevin feels it more than he sees it as Neil cascades delicate fingers down the length of the corset, a yearning gesture that has Kevin clamming his mouth shut, burning in the coyness of it. It occurs to him that it’s not just the enormity of his own desire that has him so weak in the knees, but the knowledge that Neil, sharp edged as he is, _wants_ him — Kevin goes crazy over the idea of Neil going crazy over him, and it is as odd as it is delightful to recognize that narcissism is not only a mirror, but the mother of all lust. “This is pretty,” Neil quietly offers. “I don’t want to stroke your ego, but this is pretty.”

Despite himself, Kevin’s laugh is a bashful, reserved little thing. “You don’t deserve the ego stroking,” he lies, though the next part is as truthful as can be, “but you don’t look bad, yourself.”

“Wow,” Neil deadpans. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Kevin hums. Not-bad is hardly ever how he’d describe Neil’s elegantly pushed back hair — Nicky’s suggestion, bless him —, but it’s bizarre to openly compliment Neil, still: with so much buried and repressed under them, their liberation can only be explosive. Kevin’s hands itch to pull him into a kiss, but restraint is nothing if not a virtue, and he needs to know if Neil likes him enough to chase after him. “Do it like this,” Kevin commands, reaching his hands behind his back to grab at Neil’s wrists and pulling them with mild force. 

Neil’s movements stutter briefly, an almost break of character, but they regain their firmness quick enough. “Don’t ask me to help you if all you’ll do is boss me around,” Neil half-heartedly retorts. 

The touch is electric, though: Kevin’s hands burn where they meet Neil’s skin, incendiary in the way only lovers can be, and he thinks _This is bad. This is something I’d burn myself to the ground for._ Kevin loves everything he can die for, and Neil is a magnet of trouble; nothing good can come out of this. 

And yet — wasn’t Kevin the one who got tired of being good somewhere between the past and the present? 

“No,” he tells Neil, tentatively squeezing his wrists. It’s gentle — the thank you Kevin can’t voice — and jealous; an excuse to touch more. Neil’s hands are strong and calloused from the years of guns and racquets, firm against Kevin’s back, but his wrists are thin; delicate; the root of all life there is to him. “You’re clueless.”

“Is that so?” Neil inquires, sharp. He tightens one of the final laces, ghosting his fingertips against Kevin’s lower back, and it’s an unfair play, though Kevin falls for it anyways. “How come?”

“Well,” Kevin counterpoints easily, though they both know it’s not the corset he’s talking about. Kevin gives up on analogies halfway through voicing out his thoughts, instead opting for the same blunt honesty he often falls back on: “You didn’t tell me you wanted me. You didn’t say. I’d let you had I known it.”

“You didn’t notice.”

“It wasn’t very noticeable. Although,” Kevin considers the last few months, “it’s true that you haven’t been yourself, lately.”

Neil finishes the last bow of the corset, tightening the lacing one last time, and shakes his wrist free of Kevin’s hands, now a loose grip. They fall to his sides limply, but when Kevin goes to turn around, Neil keeps him from it by wrapping firm hands around his waist. It’s easier, he reckons, to have these conversations when they’re not face to face — Kevin complies easily. “I didn’t think you’d want me,” is what Neil eventually admits, his fingertips grazing down Kevin’s sides. “You don’t strike me as someone who wants a liar.”

Kevin thinks Neil would be surprised to know the type of people that he wants.

“True, but irrelevant,” he argues, hands awkwardly pairing down his sides. To give them something to do, Kevin places them on top of Neil’s, the same way he’d done to Andrew a week ago. “I don’t want _a_ liar. Never said anything about _my_ liar.”

Neil’s feet stumble backwards in surprise, but Kevin balances him out by pressing down onto his hands firmly. “ _Kevin,_ ” Neil voices out, a startled stammer. “Say that again.”

“Say what?”

“Your liar.”

In spite of himself, Kevin smiles where Neil can’t see it. “I want _my_ liar.”

Neil’s hands squeeze around his waist. “You’re so awful.”

“Then let go of me.”

He does the opposite — he brings Kevin closer, leaning his forehead between Kevin’s shoulder blades. “No.”

“You might want to,” comes Andrew’s voice from the other side of the room, the man in question leant against the doorway with his arms crossed, already in his party clothes. There is a flush to his cheeks that Kevin can tell is not from the shower, but the abrupt change in the atmosphere has him jumping away from Neil, startled. Old habits die hard, Kevin supposes — he still doesn’t do well with being observed during intimate moments. “It’s me. Not the devil, as far as I am aware.”

Kevin brings a hand to his heart, kneading the skin over the shirt to calm down his heartbeat. Riko’s gaze lingers, still — uninvited, unconsented to, heavy on Kevin’s nape everywhere he went, even in moments where it shouldn’t have been there. Intimacy (rough, often cruel, often taken rather than freely given) in the Nest was easily gained, but their system guaranteed that Riko would be there even during Kevin’s most private moments, a shadow he could not get rid of. Andrew — was _not_ Riko, but the feeling of being caught by surprise in an intimate moment had too much of an assimilation to finding Riko’s eyes in the dark for Kevin to not react badly to it.

“Kevin,” Andrew calls, pulling him out of his memories. Breath comes hard, granted, but Neil places a careful hand at the small of his back, more to support Kevin than anything else, and he finds himself leaning his weight against it. “Breathe. He is dead.”

“You don’t—” Kevin starts, gulping down saliva. He closes his eyes and inhales. One, two, three. Perris says recovery takes time; _you’ll be fine soon. You’ll be okay. Riko is not forever. You are._ Kevin exhales. His pulse slows down, his eyes open and find Andrew. Good — Andrew is safe. Andrew would win in a fight against Riko. “You don’t know what this is about,” he replies, at last, strangled. 

“No,” Andrew agrees shortly. His unwavering calm more or less soothes Kevin’s nerves — Riko was never this expressionless; he’d always find it amusing when Kevin got uncomfortable. “And I will not ask you to tell me, either. I was not watching you.”

Kevin presses his lips together tightly. Andrew ghosts a hand over Kevin’s chin, asking for permission, and Kevin nods briefly before sneaking a hand behind his own back to grab at Neil’s wrist. It’s for support, mostly — Neil presses back against his palms, a quiet reminder that he won’t let go until Kevin asks him to. Andrew holds his chin with his very fingertips, bringing him down almost delicately. “Kevin,” he repeats, “I was not. Watching. You. No one was. Neil was the only one in the room aside from you.”

“I was,” Neil confirms, dragging his thumb up and down Kevin’s back over his shirt. “I would’ve told you if there was someone else.”

“Okay,” he replies. Two confirmations is not nearly enough to suffocate Riko’s image from the back of his mind, but it’s enough for Kevin to know that they are telling the truth — his shoulders slump, and his grip around Neil’s wrist loosens. “I believe you.”

Andrew inspects his face, using the hand cradling Kevin’s chin to turn his head this and that way on account of checking for damage, before letting go completely. His muscles are tense, tight-knit and taut, but his movements are calm as he announces that he’s going to find Robin, flicking the two of them a pointed look before clicking the door closed behind himself. Kevin hears the sound of it locking, and he knows Andrew did it for him — a reminder that no one is going to walk in and bask in Kevin’s discomfort.

Neil tentatively presses his forehead against Kevin’s back for a quick moment before pulling away and testing the corset’s strings one last time. “Is it okay?” he asks, tugging at the last bow. 

“It is,” Kevin confirms, hands dropping to his sides. It’s easier to pretend that nothing happened, because nothing did happen — a ghost can’t hurt him anymore; Kevin can’t belong to any man, dead or alive. He absentmindedly traces the queen tattoo with his own thumb, both a comfort and a reminder, before announcing, “Let’s go to Nicky’s. I’ll get my hat and sword.”

The wording makes Neil snort, the sound of it, in return, making Kevin smile. “Hurry up if you don’t want to get an earful from Robin,” Neil says, though he waits for Kevin at the door and visibly refrains himself from making fun of him for the hat as they walk down the hallway to get to Nicky and Aaron’s dorm. 

Aaron opens the door to them as soon as they knock, dressed in what Kevin can only imagine is a foul attempt at a doctor costume, wearing a white lab coat with a fake stethoscope around his neck. His eyes push through Neil easily, falling on Kevin instead. “You look ridiculous,” is what he says, caustic as ever. “No one will want to sleep with you.”

Kevin does not quite know how he came to be friends with Aaron Minyard of all people, but the familiar tone of half-insult half-tease tugs at his heartstrings all the same, a missing he had basked in for too long. “There is always someone that is willing to fuck a pirate,” he replies, matter-of-factly, “but if you’re that worried, I reiterate that I do not need you as a wingman. Not tonight, not ever.”

He quirks an eyebrow in Kevin’s direction, taking a step to the side. “Josten, get in. Me and Kevin have to talk.”

The mere sound of his voice makes Kevin laugh, but Neil does not comply with Aaron's wish, tugging Kevin into the room with him. He turns his head around to offer Aaron a teasing eyebrow raise, and the blond squints his eyes in Kevin’s direction, not saying anything else before closing the door behind them. 

Andrew sits by the window, a lollipop making up for the usual cigarette he would have in his hand hadn’t he started his journey to quit smoking. By the open bathroom door, Robin and a blonde girl Kevin hadn’t met before peek curiously over Nicky’s shoulder, the man in question leaning over the bathroom sink to blow dry his hair. Robin’s costume is pretty much the same as Kevin’s, though her blouse is shoulder-less and, instead of a sword, what she has in her hands is a very long, very fake pistol. The girl beside her, whose name Kevin knows he’s heard before but can’t quite recall, is dressed in a somewhat accurate — yet vaguely generic — Regency Era dress, her hair pulled into a curly updo growing from a soft center part, the visual depiction of a young lady from the early nineteenth century. 

Robin turns her head towards them at the sound of Kevin’s voice, the lion mane of her curls slapping against the air as she does so, and the smile she offers them is bashful, “Sorry, I got distracted asking for foundation.”

Kevin huffs, pulling the pirate hat out of his head and letting it drop to the couch as he makes his way towards her, Neil straying from him to sit with Andrew by the window. “Clearly,” he muses, raking a hand through his own hair. The girl turns to him, her features delicate and her eyes round and doe, a blank look falling to her face. “Hello. I’m Kevin.”

She blinks in his direction, almost a deer caught in headlights, before dragging out in a heavy accent Kevin can’t recognize — “Hello. I know.”

Robin, from the corner of the doorway opposite to her, lets out a loud cackle, though Kevin has no idea what is so funny. Between laughs, she introduces, “Kevin, this is Gigi. She’s my friend.”

“Hello, Gigi,” he briefly acknowledges before peeking over their heads to where Nicky stood, a grin the size of the sun to his mouth as he adjusts an obnoxiously pink cowboy hat over his curly hair. “Nicky,” Kevin hums. 

Nicky’s smile grows, staring at Kevin through the mirror. “You came with a costume. Is this a dream? Am I dreaming?”

“I told you he would,” Robin interjects. 

He motions dismissively at her, leaning closer to the mirror to glue one single rhinestone directly upon the beauty mark under his left eye, the stone twinkling under the bathroom lights. Nicky was one of the few people in the world whose tackiness Kevin could excuse, if only because he managed — more or less — to make it look presentable. “I told you I would only believe it when I saw it,” he tells her, a concentrated look taking over his face as he presses down against the rhinestone. “Kevin, what about we cover your tattoo with this instead of foundation?”

Kevin coughs out his answer. “Absolutely not.”

“Your loss,” Nicky shrugs. He blindly reaches for the bottle of foundation, barely turning around to throw it to Kevin before resuming his self-check out in the mirror. “Ask Robin to see if it matches your skin. You’re lighter than me.”

He huffs. “Just by one or two shades.”

“Not everyone gets to have this beautiful dark skin.”

Robin chuckles. She’s giggly today, Kevin considers — the thought makes him happy. “Let me see,” she says, extending her hand out. Kevin passes her the foundation, and she holds it to his face in thought. “Gi, what do you think?”

Gigi squints. “It is going to be dark. No one is going to notice if it’s not his shade.” Her Rs and Ts have a foreign swirl to them, a Slavic tilt to her words. _Maybe Russian_ , he thought.

“I’ll look ridiculous,” Kevin protests.

“Such is life,” she replies, unmoved. 

“You won’t look ridiculous if we blend it out really well,” Robin reassures, slipping her hand on the crook of Kevin’s elbow and gently tugging him towards the couch. 

Once he’s fully sat down, Robin leans over the back of the couch with a small sponge Kevin does not know from where she got and the foundation bottle on her hands. “Close your eyes or something,” she hums, squeezing product onto the back of her hand. “It’s going to be awkward if you keep looking at me.”

Kevin huffs, but does as he’s told. Not even a few seconds after, he feels light pats against the skin of his cheekbone, first from Robin’s fingertips and then from the sponge in a delicate come-and-go, not much different from the makeup Kevin has been made to wear before in TV appearances. He’s not as much of a fan of it as Nicky is, but there is some beauty to it — Kevin used to love it when Thea’s light makeup complimented the darkness of her skin, and he finds it rather charming when Nicky dusts glitter over his own eyelids, golden like Andrew’s hair. It’s pretty, Kevin thinks, and soothing to have it applied on.

When Robin tells him to open his eyes again, she’s not the only one leaning over the couch in curiosity. Andrew peeks down at him with a somewhat uninterested look from one of her sides, Neil leaning on his elbows over the back of the couch on her other side. Kevin blinks up at the trio of them. “Hi.”

The corner of Neil’s mouth tugs upward. “Hi.”

Robin gently taps the sponge against the tip of Kevin’s nose. “You’re done. It’s like you don’t even have a tattoo, now.”

“Is it?” Kevin asks, but doesn’t get up to check for himself. He likes the sight — Robin, Neil and Andrew above him, the light creating halos at the top of their heads. It’s an odd feeling; belonging _with_ instead of belonging _to_. Kevin thinks he likes it. 

“It is,” Andrew tonelessly confirms. He wants to push his head up and place a kiss on Andrew's mouth, now that he’s done it once and can confirm he wants to do it again, but not with so many people in the room. Kevin suspects a big part of such a wish is the crooked angel halo in Andrew's head, so ironic it could even be funny.

“Hm,” he replies, “that’s good.”

Neil flicks his forehead gently. “You look stupid.”

“You look young,” Robin amends, a curly strand of her hair falling over Kevin’s face. “My age, even.”

Andrew offers her a dry look. “He is barely four years older than you are.”

“I didn’t know him at nineteen,” she answers dismissively, reaching a hand to push a strand of hair out of Kevin’s face. “You tell me if he looked like this.”

Both her and Neil turn to Andrew expectantly. He scoffs, “He looked nothing like this. And he already had a tattoo.”

Kevin nods slowly, counting the moles on Neil’s jawline and neck absentmindedly. Seven — three more than Andrew. “It’s true. I had a buzzcut. And my face was sharper.”

Robin pokes the tip of her finger against Kevin’s cheek. “I like it better now.”

In a way quite unusual for him, or at least a version of him that hasn’t directly confessed that he wants Kevin, Neil snakes a hand down to grab Kevin’s face, squeezing lightly. “You look _so_ stupid,” Neil repeats. 

“How many times are you going to repeat that?” 

“Until it gets through your thick skull.”

Kevin bats his hand away, pulling himself up once more. Three heads lean back as he comes forward, almost in perfect synchrony, and Kevin has to swallow back a grin at the sight of them. Friendly faces follow him wherever he goes, nowadays, and it’s almost enough to drown out the sound of his own cruel musings when they are — in their own way — this beautiful. 

They divide into two cars on their way to Columbia: Kevin, Robin, Aaron and Gigi in Kevin’s car and Neil, Andrew and Nicky in the Maserati, what earned him a disapproving glance from Andrew and a curious one from Neil. The truth is that, for how fragile and intense things with them are, Kevin does not want to spend an hour long car ride in their presence, and especially not with Nicky as company — the tension is already thick enough as it is, and there is no need to amp it up by sitting in a closed space with them for a prolonged time just to prove a point. 

Aaron drives on the account that Kevin will drive them back from Eden’s, and they argue over the radio all the way to Columbia, Robin and Gigi excitedly discussing a TV show Kevin hasn’t seen in the backseat. They follow the Maserati into Eden’s parking lot, Aaron showing the bouncer his ID before pulling through after Andrew. Their group rekindles in the parking lot, Nicky joining Robin and Gigi’s conversation and Kevin falling behind to walk with Andrew and Neil in spite of his previous avoidance, Aaron walking alone just in front of them. 

They walk in silence, the trio of them, and it’s in that very same silence that Andrew lightly drums his fingers against the small of Kevin’s back, always asking for permission before touching. Kevin turns to look at him and nod his consent, his gaze knocking against Andrew’s other palm already comfortably resting on Neil’s back. Andrew’s hand finds him easily, warm palm pressing over his shirt, and Kevin sneaks a glance at Aaron before craning down to murmur, “This is a power trip for you, isn’t it?”

Andrew slides him an unimpressed gaze. “It is,” Neil lowly agrees, also mindful of his tone, “he thinks he’s such hot shit.”

Kevin hums. “He’s handsome, but rather unpleasant.”

“Quite so,” Neil nods. 

Andrew does not reply, granted, but it makes Kevin wonder if the two of them talking so nonchalantly only amps up his power trip even more. The thought left something funny at the pit of his stomach: Andrew did not need anymore ego strokes, surely, and yet Kevin found it incredibly amusing to be the reason behind his vanity. Andrew tugs at the last string of his corset as a warning to shut up, and, inexplicably, Kevin feels the overwhelming urge to laugh out of the blue. 

They settle into one of their usual tables, close to the bar with a clear enough vision of the dance floor for Andrew to mindlessly stare into as he sips his whiskey. Kevin stares holes at the back of Andrew's head as he and Aaron make their way to the counter to order their usual drinks, the cord of his pirate hat digging into his chin. From the chair beside him, Neil follows his gaze, the two of them sitting across Robin and Gigi, still engaged in their own little world. Nicky had beelined for the dance floor as soon as they got there, disappearing between moving bodies dressed in the most unhinged costumes, a bubblegum pop song loud enough over the speakers to tug at Kevin’s skull. 

Neil tugs him down by the frilly of his blouse, talking over the loud music, “He’s not going to drink.”

“Hm,” Kevin replies, reluctantly doubtful in spite of himself. “I’ll—”

“Believe it when you see it,” Neil completes, a teasing smile on his lips. Unbearably pretty, true, but not enough to convince Kevin. “He’s not going to. You’ll see.”

“Will you?” he changes the subject, lowering his head for Neil’s mouth to be at the same height as his ear as the music grows even louder. 

“Of course not,” Neil all but promises, blowing air into Kevin’s ear teasingly. His version of flirting is antagonizing, Kevin noticed, like a little boy tugging at his pigtails — it was incredibly charming, if a bit annoying. “I want my kiss.”

Kevin hums. “So I’ve noticed. How do you plan to get it?”

Neil stops to think for a second. “We should dance tonight.”

“What has Nicky been teaching you in my absence?” Kevin holds back a laugh, slightly shaking his head. Neil rests a hand on his knee discreetly, though there is no need to: Robin and Gigi are too engaged in each other to even acknowledge their conversation. Kevin thinks there must be something there, but is too busy at the moment to ask. “I will _not_ dirty dance with you, Neil.”

Despite himself, Neil’s huff of laughter hits the side of Kevin’s face. “Don’t be so... I’ve seen you dance before. You clearly have fun.”

“So you want me to have fun,” Kevin inquires, dripping sarcasm. “How sweet of you.” 

“Always,” Neil promises, his tone lighthearted. “Yes or no, Kevin? Will we or will we not dance tonight?”

Kevin knocks the top of their heads together gently before pulling away. “Yes, Neil, we will. After they’re back.”

He raises an eyebrow in Kevin’s direction. “You keep repeating my name. See anything you like?”

Instead of answering, Kevin flicks him on his forehead, making Neil lean away from him on instinct. “Hands to yourself, Josten,” he limits himself to replying, curling his palm around the back of Neil’s hand and unpeeling it from his knee. “Where I can see them.”

Neil rolls his eyes, though he complies nonetheless. “Now you’re just being an asshole.”

“Restraint is a virtue.”

“I don’t reckon we’re very virtuous people.”

Kevin leans his face on his hands, studying the way the light colors Neil’s eyes red, pink, and purple. He felt a sudden determination to be unfazed by Neil, who so clearly enjoyed fazing not just everyone, but Kevin in specific. “Other virtues bore me,” he confesses. “They’re all too easy to master. Restraint is always a challenge, though, if you’re indulgent like me.”

“Self-inflicted?” Neil wonders aloud. “Or is it me specific?” He drapes his elbows across the table, making himself comfortable to stare right into Kevin’s face. “That hat makes you look ridiculous. Serious little moonbeam that you are.”

Kevin rolls his eyes. “You talk a lot.”

“Ah, the liar’s curse,” he muses, “you don’t believe me even when I’m telling the truth.”

“You would think that a liar caught lying would be wise enough to stop.”

“Not lying,” Neil hums, poking the exposed skin of Kevin’s chest. “It’s not like you to deny a compliment. Where’s our narcissist?”

“How is a serious little moonbeam a compliment?”

Neil makes a face of feigned surprise, though Kevin knows he said just what Neil wanted to hear. “Did I say that? My bad,” he amends, “I meant to say that you are _my_ serious little moonbeam.”

Kevin focuses on the scarring of his hand instead of replying right away. It’s crooked, he thought, and ragged — and dear. “Just yours?” he muses quietly, dragging his fingertips down the back of Neil’s hand so lightly Kevin doubted he felt it at all.

“Andrew’s, maybe.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t belong to either of you.”

A lie, betrayed by the reverence with which he traced Neil’s scars, but a lie still. Kevin could not agree with it, even if he admired Neil’s bravery for even saying it at all — with the heaviness of Riko’s ownership still heavy on his back, Kevin can’t say he’s too enthusiastic of belonging to another man so soon, however much he enjoyed the thought of the man being Neil. 

Neil lets out a sigh, his melancholy nothing if not faux. He opens his mouth to reply, perhaps yet another witty response, but Kevin will never know — Aaron places the trail of drinks across the table, and Andrew returns to his spot beside Neil, though it hadn’t been where he’d previously sat; Kevin hadn’t noticed until now that Neil took the spot between them that should have been Andrew’s during their conversation. His fingertips slip away from the back of Neil’s hands at the sudden attention, just quick enough to catch Aaron’s complaints.

“I can’t believe _Andrew_ is going to be sober for the night,” he complains under his breath, passing a shot to Gigi, whose hand was cradled by a cream-colored silk glove. She tips the shot back easily, then rolls it back to Aaron, who looks mildly surprised but not at all unamused. “Very well. Who needs Andrew?”

Robin, from her side, stares at her with a funny look on her eyes. Kevin wondered if he looked like that at Neil, or — God forbid — Andrew. “Now, Amy March, if you see this man nearing a drink,” Aaron points in Kevin’s direction, “you’re more than allowed to smack it out of his hands.”

“You are not,” Andrew interjects.

“You are.”

“Amy March is from another time period,” Kevin corrects Aaron, reluctantly dragging his gaze away from Neil. “Her dress is from the early nineteenth century. Little Women happens later on.”

Aaron motions dismissively at him. “They’re both from the same century.”

“So are Britney Spears and Ronald Reagan, but you wouldn’t dare compare them.”

“You,” he points an accusative finger in Kevin’s direction, “don’t know the things I would dare to do.”

Faulty historical knowledge aside, Kevin bites down on his amusement. “No, I don’t.”

Andrew looks between them for a moment before acknowledging Gigi for the first — and, realistically, last — time tonight. “Do not touch Kevin without his permission,” is what he says, at last, before leaning back into his chair and promptly ignoring everyone else. 

She shrugs, tipping back another shot. Robin still has that look in her eyes, and Kevin worries that if she doesn’t lose it soon it’ll become permanent on her face.

“Good talk,” Neil announces before hooking a finger on Kevin’s belt loops under the table, tugging lightly. “If you’ll excuse us, now, Kevin and I are going to dance.”

It’s enough to drag Andrew’s attention towards them, his eyes inevitably darting to where Neil’s hand is — “Dance,” he implicitly questions, stealing a look at Kevin from over Neil’s shoulder.

Kevin nods, not knowing exactly what he’s nodding to. He fidgets with the cord of his hat, humming, "He’s missed me a lot.”

Aaron snorts into his drink. “Clearly.” 

Neil’s tugs become harsher, and Kevin has no choice but to follow, though Andrew catches his wrist as they’re leaving. He brings Kevin down enough to be heard, voice rough and drawn out like it always is, “I will have to keep an eye on you two. Will it be a problem?”

Kevin squints at him through the lights. “It’s fine,” he lowly answers, “but your boyfriend might have some ideas of disappearing with me.”

Andrew rolls his eyes, but his grip around Kevin’s wrist becomes firmer. “Have fun. Tell him to bring you back in one piece.”

“Shouldn’t it be the contrary?”

He drags his fingers down Kevin’s wrist deliberately. “Neil,” he starts, “is the worst. He is more danger to you than you are to him.”

Kevin huffs petulantly, unwinding himself from Andrew’s clutch and letting himself be dragged into the dance floor, their table slowly disappearing under the violent vibration of the crowd. Stumbling into Neil’s side, he delays Andrew’s message, “Your boyfriend told you to bring me back in one piece.”

Neil sighs exaggeratedly. “Drama queen.”

He didn’t know what to say to that, so he did not say anything at all. Then, there was nothing to do but dance, so that is what Kevin does — dance in the face of uncertainty.

He’d been truthful to his word: this was not dirty dancing. In fact, during all of the years he’s met Neil, Kevin doesn’t think he’d ever seen him dance before, and not by lack of opportunity. It was an odd sight, but only because it was so unusual to see Neil doing something for the pure sake of doing it, his body inelegantly jerking side to side without intent, in an awkward move he stubbornly pushed through with if only to prove that he was not embarrassed by his talent — or lack thereof — at dancing. It occurred to Kevin that it didn’t quite matter to Neil if what he was doing was right or not, attractive or not, smooth or not; what mattered is that he was there, and that he wanted to dance with Kevin, and so he did. 

It inspired a bizarre thought in Kevin, one that he might have suppressed for too long to ever be able to acknowledge it peacefully. He wanted Neil’s hands on him: he wanted Neil’s slender fingers to drum the skin of his belly, to cascade down his back, to press against his chest, to do the marvelous work of touching every bit of Kevin’s skin they could find. Five fingers and five more, the entirety of Kevin’s word branching out of scarred, calloused palms — perhaps he had convinced himself that he wanted the contrary for so long that the realization hit him abruptly, though maybe it shouldn’t have. 

When Neil’s hands tentatively find Kevin’s hips, more to steady himself than to really touch, it feels as if they had seen it coming a mile away — as if it had always been there, waiting, the urge to reach out and touch, coming undone after a long time of sitting around in their tension. Kevin had liked Neil so much that no other man had been real to him during the moments they spent together on the court, and so it never occurred to him that he loved Neil before, because they were already so good at hating each other that it had been easier to just accept that that was what the tingling feeling under his skin meant. They saw it coming in the same way that they didn’t: it felt like they’d been waiting, dancing around each other for years now, manhandled into a tango of averted eyes, though neither knew what they were quite waiting for. It felt, for some reason, like realizing Kevin had been living in a house with twelve rooms for all of this time, and he’d just been locked inside of one long enough to forget it. 

Yes, that was what it felt like: the locked rooms of Kevin’s body being opened one by one, Andrew with his keys and Neil with a hammer. Freedom was a foreign feeling to Kevin Day, but oh, wasn’t it glorious. 

Neil looks up, grins at Kevin, and everything inside of him moves. Every door sprung open; no place to hide in but the bold, open light.

Their dancing lacked the ferocious grace they held themselves to at court — neither of them had Andrew’s assertiveness to make this dancing elegant, this touching prosaic, and they did not care that they didn’t have it. It was refreshing to be unapologetically bad at something: Neil was new and exciting and ill-advised in twenty different ways, so there was no need to pretend as if Kevin had come prepared for this. He couldn’t have been prepared for Neil if he’d gotten a year's notice of his sudden appearance in his life, and there was no point in pretending that Kevin knew what he was doing when he followed Neil’s odd moves. 

There was something vital to their clumsiness: _passion,_ Kevin thought, looking down at his own hips as if they did not belong to him, and were instead moving on their own. People often mention lovers whose pieces fit together perfectly at first try, but Kevin thinks this, too, is great — he does not consider if or why or how he loves Neil: he just does. Before there was anything, before there was Andrew or tattoos or deals or lies or this and that, there was Neil, a little league, and the court. One of these things Kevin could never go back to, but the other two he still had, still loved. Neil would not care if Kevin was ugly or beautiful, dumb or smart, good or bad, funny or a bore — he’d love Kevin either way, for such were the ties of boys who were once young together. It was refreshing; it was dreamy. 

It was good to want, too — to want Kevin’s liar and his mouth and his fingers and his eyes and his strong arms and his quick legs and and and and and. Wanting strong enough to sustain hatred; strong enough to sustain love; strong enough to sustain the years of fighting and making up. 

Neil tugs him down by the cord of his hat, and Kevin goes easily. For a moment he thinks Neil is going to kiss him, right here, under the risk of being walked in by their friends, but it doesn’t happen — instead, his cheek brushes Kevin’s, and he says, “I can’t kiss you,” in a whisper, like a secret, “because it will become a habit and I can’t get rid of habits.”

Despite himself, Kevin suppresses a shiver, brushing his lips against the scarred skin of Neil’s cheekbone. “I was under the impression that I’m the kind of habit that you like.”

“Andrew has been telling you lies.”

Kevin chuckles under his breath. “Andrew told me that you are free to chase what you like.”

Neil tugs him down harsher, forcing Kevin to steady himself by draping his arms across his shoulders, crossing behind Neil’s neck. A risky position, surely, but Andrew has their backs if they start to draw attention. “Who said you are what I like?” he wondered aloud.

“You dream of me,” Kevin answers, blunt. 

“I think of you,” Neil corrects him, a liar caught lying. A fox chasing its own tail. What would that mother dearest of his think, Kevin wonders, if she saw him like this?

“You think of me.”

“Constantly.”

Heart-fluttering. Deadly, too. Angels could love more neatly but they don’t. “Constantly,” Kevin echoes, dumbfounded. 

“You know what constantly means, Kevin,” Neil evades, too nonchalant for the intimate ways that their bodies have folded together, gentle but firm. “Every day. Every instant. Continuously, persistently, ceaselessly, night and day, day and night. Always.”

“I know,” he slowly puts down, “what it means.”

Neil grins. “Good for you.”

The music changes, and so does the light — the heavy bass of before gives way to something louder, wilder, cheerier. It courses through Kevin, mostly, energy so long left stale, and Neil unwinds from him to jump to the elevating beat, his hand still firmly grasping at Kevin’s belt loops, even then. It’s a clumsy separation; as clumsy as it had been to come together; but this time there is the balm of happiness to make up for the severance: Kevin yells the lyrics of the song even if he doesn’t know them, and Neil laughs because he knows Kevin doesn’t know them and seems to find it endearing anyway.

Dancing is silly, vulgar, simplory, ill-bred and unrefined, all the sins Kevin was never supposed to be. He is, either way, and when his hands shoot up, he could swear that they were shaking from happiness, for once. 

Kevin cranes his neck down to knock the top of his head against Neil’s, urging him to dance, and they do — they dance and they dance and they dance, Neil’s hands trailing up his blouse and fisting at his neckline, keeping Kevin close. They’re not a pair for long enough, Robin’s silky red bandana a beacon between the crowd as she approaches them with a smile, Gigi behind her, and it’s just _easy._ It’s easy to be young, wild and free; and nothing hurts when you are. Freedom, freedom, freedom, with each jump of his feet, a thought, a dream, a state of mind. 

He spins Robin around at least twenty times or so, and then twice as much for Neil, and they return the favor. By the time he’s dragging himself back to their table, panting and breathless in Neil’s tow, Andrew already has matching glasses of water standing on top of the table, a pensive look on his eyes.

Aaron is nowhere to be found, probably stranded somewhere in the line to the bathroom, but Nicky’s cowboy hat is sitting pretty on the table. Kevin smiles in Andrew’s direction, a grin he’s been told makes him look boyish, and gets a brief huff in response. “Hi,” he says, stumbling onto the seat beside Andrew. It was probably Neil’s before — not that it matters, because Neil is still holding onto him, slotting himself between Kevin’s and Andrew’s seats with a hand on Kevin’s back. 

“Drink,” is what Andrew says, sliding water glasses their way. Robin murmurs something about empty nests that Kevin doesn’t quite catch, but it earns her a glare from Andrew. She’s back into the dance floor — with the _girl,_ he notices — before they can even catch where she’s heading to.

Kevin downs the glass of water obediently, wiping his mouth with his wrist not longer after. “That was so much fun,” he pants to Neil’s direction, their sides crashing together. “Why haven’t we done this before?”

“Because you hate fun,” Neil flicks him on his forehead. 

“I do not.”

“You do.”

“Don’t.”

“Do.”

“Don’t.”

“D— Hmph,” Neil stumbles back as Andrew shoves a piece of lime on his mouth, cutting their discussion short. He spits it out before complaining, “What was that for?”

“The two of you are annoying.”

Kevin huffs, nuzzling Neil’s shoulder in reassurance. He’ll probably regret this much skinship when he wakes up the next morning, but for now, Neil lets it happen, so Kevin doesn’t stop. “Andrew doesn’t know how to dance,” he murmurs to Neil’s shoulder, a whispered secret.

Andrew quirks an eyebrow in his direction. “You have taught me.”

“I’m a bad teacher,” Kevin confesses. 

“Hm,” he replies, “you are.”

Kevin knocks his cheeks against Neil’s. “See? I told you. Handsome, but unpleasant.”

“Were you not supposed to disappear with him?” Andrew asks, ignoring both Kevin’s compliment and Kevin’s insult. 

Neil snorts. “To where? This place is packed.”

“I’m right here.”

“You could go to the wall next to the bathroom.”

“I’m literally right here.”

“That’s— I haven’t thought of that,” Neil rubs his chin in thought. “Not all of us get the privilege of a hotel room, I suppose.”

Kevin thinks he sees the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of Andrew’s lips. It’s not the first time he’s seen Andrew smiling, and not the first time Andrew smiled about something Kevin-related either — nonetheless, it still makes something proud flicker in his heart. “Go,” Andrew shoos them away. “Yes or no, Kevin?”

In spite of his previou smusings, Kevin protests, “It’s not you who has to ask that.”

“Yes,” Neil’s hand travels down his back, “or no, Kevin?”

“Ask me when we get there.”

Andrew’s next huff is definitely amused. “Very well,” Neil replies, offering out his arm to Kevin like a fine gentleman, charmingly silly. “Shall we?”

Kevin stares at him for a brief moment before springing forward and pressing an admittedly not thoroughly thought of kiss at the top of his nose, more of a peck than anything. Neil’s eyebrows shoot up, a quick stumble to his feet, and it’s exactly what Kevin wanted to see — the same reaction he got from calling Neil his liar, hours ago. “Yes,” he hums, accepting Neil’s offered arm and letting himself be tugged away after Neil’s initial shock wears away.

“One piece, Abram.”

From over his own shoulder, Neil grins at Andrew, “Of course.” 

Kevin doesn’t hear Andrew’s reply, doubts there was one at all. Neil whispers to him as they push past the crowd, “So protective. As if you’re not in the best of hands.”

“Andrew’s paranoid,” Kevin points out.

“With you, absolutely,” he hums, the amusement of his voice so evident — Kevin thinks Neil can’t help but talk about Andrew with love, regardless of what he’s saying. He likes what Neil is implying, too; that Kevin could, somehow, sometime, some way, be precious to Andrew. 

The so-called wall next to the bathroom is what the name implies: a wall next to the bathroom, though so far deep into the club that it is all but desert aside from random jackets and purses dumped around and near it, someone’s sparkly sunglasses dejected to the ground. It’s secluded, hidden almost completely by the line of the bathroom (now circling around, Kevin hopes Aaron has long given up on it) and the wall of people sticking to the opposite side of the dance floor. It’s not classy, granted, but he owed Neil a kiss, and by the Lord would Kevin pay his fine with a handsome rate of interest. 

“Here we are,” Neil says, a mischievous smile tugging at the corners of his lips. He slips his hands over Kevin’s biceps, holding him in place over the material of his shirt. 

“And here you have me,” Kevin agrees, “what will you do about it?”

“Nothing without a yes.”

Kevin smiles. “Yes.”

It takes Neil exactly two seconds to crash their lips together, twisting the cord of Kevin’s hat to tug him down. It’s — years of tension coming undone, liberation at its peak, but when Kevin tries to grasp at his last few remains of sanity, all he can feel is an enormous relief: that this did happen, after all, and that he wouldn’t die a man that hasn’t kissed Neil Josten before. He hadn’t realized the scope of his own desire until it had been presented just under his nose, on display for everyone to see, each touch of Neil’s mouth inciting clarity deep in his bones. 

Neil drags his tongue down Kevin’s bottom lip, and Kevin fumbles out of his hat blindly to use it as a barrier, placing it on the side of both their faces to hide their joined mouths. “Hi,” he laughs against Neil’s lips, a juvenile pleasure. 

“Hi,” Neil hums back, tipping Kevin’s chin back with the tip of his thumb. Gently, his back hits the wall behind them, and Kevin can do nothing but follow as Neil beckons him by pulling him forward through the hand on his chin. 

He places his free hand on the nape of Neil’s neck, curling his fingers around it delicately, and earns himself another kiss, mouth opening on instinct. Kevin understands why love-induced lust was so looked down upon in the Nest — _this,_ he thought, _is the kind of feeling people rebel for._ Everytime he was denied a moment of intimacy he was being kept in line, because the Moriyamas knew — God, they must have known — that an unbound Kevin would run himself to the ground with any love he could find, chasing the high of a lover’s mouth curling lovingly around his into the pits of hell. 

Kevin nips at Neil’s lower lip in retaliation for earlier, not nearly hard enough to hurt, and it makes Neil tug him down harsher, fingers cascading down Kevin’s jawline. “Just touch me,” Kevin hums between kisses, “just… Touch.” He reaches for Neil’s hand and presses it against his chest. “Yes. It’s a yes.”

The truth is that Kevin did not mind the scarred skin, the pointy knuckles, the bony wrists — so long as Neil's hands continued their diaspora down his body, drumming on his belly and drawing circles on his thighs over the pirate trousers, Kevin would not have any complaints.

Neil shivers lightly, doing as he’s told and firmly dragging both his hands down Kevin’s side without breaking the kiss. “This,” he pants against Kevin’s mouth, “took us so long.”

“Then seize it,” Kevin replies, half of a laugh in his tone. Neil’s right hand stops at his waist, but his left one gently traces Kevin’s abdomen over his shirt and corset, the ghost of a touch until Kevin presses up to it. This is — freedom. Warm and steady like a candle; eager in its wilderness. He wants the press of a scarred hand against every bit of skin it could find, and he wants the world to tilt off its axis by it, Neil’s heavy palms worth a lifetime of chasing. 

It isn’t just that Kevin wants Neil — it’s that Neil wants him just as much _._ He meets Kevin in the same eagerness, the same passion, the same tender clumsiness of _can-I-can-I-not:_ he rooks his hand around Kevin’s waist and refuses to let go, and Kevin doesn’t _want_ to be let go. He wants someone that pins him down, keeps him awake, brushes hair out of his forehead, soothes what’s been hurt, grabs Kevin by his chin with calloused yet kind hands and tells him, with all the words, _It is you that I want. What in the world would make you think otherwise?_

Not ownership, because Kevin never wants to belong to a man again, but the version of it that doesn’t hurt: something quite close to taming, but forever unnamed. Someone who spreads him out like a fine rug, someone who keeps the world from getting in, someone whose love is disastrous and whose hands are firm and whose mouth tells pleasantry after pleasantry, lie after lie, someone that can find it in themselves to love Kevin unconditionally, as he is. 

He doesn’t know if Neil and Andrew even want to be that for him, and yet — and yet all they’ve done is take care of Kevin, meticulously pulling him from harm and tucking him between them protectively. It has to be enough, for now. He doesn’t want to get too greedy.

Kevin noses against Neil’s cheek, basking in his undivided attention. “Do you think they’ll notice if we’re gone for too long?” he murmurs, dragging his mouth down Neil’s face lazily, peppering kisses.

Neil sneaks a hand under Kevin’s shirt, inevitably untucking the back of it from the corset and wrinkling it up. He scratches the skin there quietly, slowly, in a languid flow so soothing Kevin finds himself melting in his hands. “Robin will ask,” Neil replies at last, catching Kevin’s mouth in a kiss again, “and Nicky, too. You know Andrew’s a shit liar.”

He snorts. “He’s not that bad.”

“He is,” Neil argues, kneading the skin of Kevin’s back absentmindedly, “says something and acts the opposite. He might as well tell them we came all the way here to make out.”

Kevin reaches a hand to tuck a strand of Neil’s hair behind his ear. “Aaron always knows when he’s lying.”

“Let’s not be gone for too long, then.”

“Let’s not,” he hums, though he does not make a move to pull away. Neil connects his mouth to Kevin’s neck, dropping kisses here and there, earning himself a gentle tug on his hair. “No marks,” Kevin warns. 

“No marks,” Neil agrees, lightly dragging his teeth over Kevin’s pulse point, enough to make his breath hitch. He smiles against Kevin’s skin before asking, “Not a fan of them?”

Kevin scoffs. “Not a fan of having to explain them.”

“To whom?” he muses. “It could’ve been just about anyone. Andrew would be the only one who knows.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Kevin concedes, sliding his hand to rest against Neil’s neck, thumbing over his jawline. “I didn’t know Andrew’s possessiveness was contagious. What would you leave marks for?”

Neil silently studies him for a minute before evading, “Indeed, what would I leave marks for?”

Something brews between them, but Kevin doesn’t know what it is. He presses one last, long kiss to Neil’s mouth, trailing his palms down his shoulders and sides, before unpeeling himself away from him completely. “Do I look too fucked up?” he asks, staring at Neil’s kiss-swollen lips and hoping his don’t look the same. 

Neil swipes his thumb over Kevin’s mouth. “It’s a little bruised. Swollen. Maybe ask Andrew to take care of it.”

Kevin stares at him in disbelief. It startles a laugh out of Neil, who amends, “Not like that. I meant to ask him to get you some ice, or chapstick to hide it fast. You go back first. I’ll see if I find Aaron.”

“You hate Aaron.”

“He’s entertaining to hate.”

Despite himself, he presses a kiss to the tip of Neil’s thumb before retreating. “Don’t take too long.”

“Clingy. Go.”

Kevin flips him off, but eventually has to do what he’s told, if only because he can feel his lips becoming sore by the minute. Finding their table again is harder than he expects it to be, granted, but Andrew’s ridiculously cheap angel halo is what ends up being his point of reference, the poor tiara discarded on top of the table miserably. He is still sitting there, monitoring the crowd, and Kevin feels a little bad for keeping him from drinking for the night — there is so little Andrew can enjoy in a club that does not involve alcohol, it’s a bit pitiful to see him quiet and still at their table, all alone. 

He knows it’s misplaced guilt: Andrew finds peace in being able to watch people, and does not quite mind being alone as long as he knows where the people of his lot are. Still, he wants Andrew to have fun, if only just for the night. 

“Andrew,” Kevin greets, climbing on the seat next to him. 

Andrew slides a cool glance his way, assessing Kevin from the top of his head to the tip of his feet, his eyes lingering on Kevin’s mouth for one second too long. “That is not one piece,” he limits himself to replying, reaching for one of the empty glasses with only ice in them and shoving it in Kevin’s hand. “Did you let him do that?”

“I’m afraid I might have asked him to do that,” Kevin confesses, circling his palms around the glass. 

“Predictable,” Andrew observes, toneless, “all the two of you know how to do is overcommit.” He drapes his gaze across the crowd briefly before turning to Kevin once more. “Put ice on it before someone comes back.”

Kevin hums. “Do it for me?”

That makes Andrew still, his eyes raking through Kevin’s frame. It’s true that Andrew has taken care of him a thousand or so times before, but each time leaves Kevin wanting more — he likes Andrew’s hands, firm and steady, and he likes feeling fussed over; it gives him an illusion of cherishment Kevin has spent a lifetime chasing after. No one quite fulfills that role as well as Andrew, for all that it’s worth, and it’s his attention Kevin trails after more often than not. He’s not above admitting to that. 

The kisses were just a bonus, really.

Andrew gruffly turns the glass backwards, sliding the remaining ice onto his hand with a blank expression, seemingly unmoved by the cold. He grabs a napkin and envelops the bits of ice with it, holding it to Kevin’s lips without moving to connect to them. Andrew will fuss over him, but Kevin will have to crane down for him to do it — it’s a system. It’s how they work. Giving and taking, always leaving an inch for their pride. 

He leans closer, allowing Andrew to press the ice to his mouth. “Thank you,” Kevin murmurs. 

“Shut up.”

“Are you having fun?” he switches subjects, letting Andrew pat the ice against his lips. “Do you want to do anything? I feel bad that you can’t drink because of me.”

Andrew’s reply is an immediate, “I can drink. I chose not to.”

“Because of me.”

He purses his lips, adjusting the ice. “It is the same as you asking me before touching. A boundary.”

Kevin blinks at him. “Yes. I mean— I know. But drinking is… Your thing.”

“And touching is yours,” Andrew replies. 

“Yes, but,” he frowns, “it’s not more important than you.”

Andrew uses his thumb to tip Kevin’s head back, pressing the ice more firmly to the puffy center of his lips. “There you have it.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, oh.” He ices around Kevin’s upper lip before pulling away, dropping the ice into the glass once more. “Not swollen anymore.”

Kevin brings the back of his hand to his mouth, wiping. “It’s cold.”

“Cold is how ice is often described.”

He huffs. “I know.” Kevin leans onto his elbows, scanning the crowd. “Would it destroy your hard work if we kissed?” he wonders aloud, every word an implicit beckoning.

Andrew’s gaze is unimpressed. “Surely you want to be caught.”

“I reckon not many people would keep me a secret if they had me.”

The reply earns Kevin an assessing gaze. “Is it a problem?” Andrew asks, nothing in his tone giving away that he cares about Kevin’s thoughts on being kept a secret, but the fact that he asked at all betrays his true intent.

 _Never sad,_ Andrew had agreed, _not you._

“No,” he replies, genuinely so, cradling his own jaw. “It’s not.”

“Kevin.”

“It’s not, Andrew,” Kevin repeats. He drapes himself across the table, close enough to be staring at Andrew’s barely visible beauty marks but still quite far from how close he wants to be. “You didn’t answer my question.”

Reluctantly, Andrew looks around, checking for possible walk-ins. Finding nothing, he turns to Kevin once more, announcing, “One kiss. Hands off.”

Kevin smiles, leaning down to be face to face with Andrew. He spreads out his palms against the tabletop, where Andrew could see them still and unmoving, and closes his eyes. “When you’re ready,” he hums. 

He feels a careful swipe of Andrew’s thumb over his lower lip, tracing the same path Neil’s had been through. “Tell me if it hurts,” Andrew mumbles, delicately brushing his nose against Kevin’s before pushing their mouths together. 

Kissing Andrew is a dream no matter the circumstances — the press of his lips is rough and luxurious, asking nothing from Kevin but for him to open his mouth and seize it, and it is over too soon for Kevin’s liking. He quite enjoys this arrangement of their relationship: showing up wherever and getting kissed, that is. 

He opens his eyes just enough to watch Andrew pull away. Kevin doesn’t complain — Andrew knows what he’s going to say even before he says it, and is quick to not-reply, “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Your stupid face did.”

“I,” Kevin protests, “did not ask you to look at my stupid face. By all means, stare away.”

Andrew’s face falls blank. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

He bites down on a smile. “You like my stupid face. You think it’s pretty.”

“Shut up.”

“Okay.”

Kevin tentatively stares away, just to see if Andrew’s gaze would follow, and is pleasantly surprised to find out that it does. It’s a funny arrangement, but he rather enjoys denying Andrew eye contact, instead smiling off into the crowd in search of a familiar face while Andrew’s stare burns holes into the side of his head. Doesn’t matter: Kevin was more used to having Andrew’s attention on him than not. It didn’t make him uncomfortable — if anything, it was rightfully deserved, where it should be in the first place.

He sees Aaron and Neil coming back from the crowd a few minutes later, one with a frown and one with a grin. Neil’s lips are still swollen, but a lot softer now, almost imperceptible if you were not paying attention — Kevin wonders if he even tried to hide it at all, but eventually concludes there was no need when everyone would just assume it had been Andrew the one who made them that way. The clandestinity of it made something stirr in interest at Kevin’s stomach, but he promptly ignores it.

“I want him gone,” is what Aaron says to Andrew before slumping on the seat next to Kevin, where Neil was heading to. 

Neil glares at the side of Aaron’s head, but slots himself beside Andrew anyways, his hand disappearing under the table and, by no doubt, slipping over Andrew’s knee. “Been here for three years now,” Neil replies, matter-of-factly. “They tried to take me away and it didn’t work, see. I’m sure you remember. You were there.”

Aaron motions dismissively at him, turning to his brother. “As I said, I want him gone.”

“What did he do?” Andrew asks, unmoved by their usual antagonism. 

“What didn’t he do?” Aaron wonders aloud. “Next time you’re eating face you could have the decency of waiting before you send him my way.”

Kevin pointedly stares at his own hands. Andrew lowly replies, “Really.”

“Yes, really. When did you even leave the table, anyways?”

“Around the same time as I did,” Neil chirps in happily, a quick-witted lie, “Kevin stayed behind. If you were smarter, you would have deduced that already.”

“Kevin,” Aaron starts, “needs a wingman. And to be taken away from you.”

Andrew’s hand snakes under the table to rest protectively against Kevin’s leg. “No.”

“That is not your decision to make, brother mine. We have agreed before that Kevin is his own person.”

“No,” Kevin echoes Andrew’s sentiment, though Aaron’s jab flared something truthful within him. It is true — Kevin Day is property of no one. “I don’t see why I’d need a wingman. If I wanted someone, I would get someone.”

Aaron rolls his eyes. “Lucky bastard. The dating pool is twice as large for you and you don’t take use of that privilege.”

Kevin mirrors it. “I regret coming out to you.”

“Don’t bother. Regret is too virtuous for you. Try resentment, instead.”

“It’s not twice as large,” Kevin corrects him out of reflex, the memory of River flooding his mind inevitably. “There are also the people in between men and women. And those who are neither.”

“Thrice as large?” Aaron offers. “Fourth time's the charm.”

Despite himself, he chuckles in amusement. “You’ve really changed over the years.”

Aaron squints at him. “Shut up.”

“Okay.”

“But— on that topic,” Aaron starts, bringing his chair close to Kevin’s and placing a hand between him and Andrew, hiding his brother’s face. “Kevin, you are a man that likes men. Tell me honestly: who is more attractive? Me or Andrew?”

“I hardly see how that’s an appropriate qu—”

“Who is,” Aaron continues, “more attractive?”

Kevin blinks. “There is no good answer to that question.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” Andrew repeats, deadpan. He looks mildly interested, or so Kevin thinks he does, given he can’t quite see with Aaron’s palm in the way. 

“You two have nothing alike aside from your face,” Kevin clinically answers. “It’d be like comparing The Iliad to The Great Gatsby. Nothing in common except that they are both books.”

Aaron lets his hand drop in defeat. “You have such a way of speaking without saying anything at all.”

That was an understatement. The media training in the Nest was quite unforgivable: Kevin had the act of speaking without saying anything at all down to an art. “You ask stupid questions, you get stupid answers,” is what he limits himself to replying.

“Hm,” Aaron answers, dry and toneless like his brother. “Kevin, let’s go with me and take a walk. I need to clear my head and I don’t want to be near my brother and Josten anymore.”

“Where’s Nicky?” Kevin inquiries.

“Having fun,” he hums. “What I should be doing instead of sitting here.”

Kevin huffs, “Fine. Lead the way.”

Andrew’s palm disappears from his leg as soon as Kevin makes to move out of his seat, and it’s a well missed warmth he thinks of as he follows Aaron’s lead around the crowd, searching for the nearest exit. Aaron looks a lot more refreshed as soon as they step out of Eden’s, yanking the fake stethoscope from his neck and throwing it wherever once they reach the parking lot. The sound of the music is muffled from the outside of the building, a mere whisper of a harsh beat, but the night is long, dark and unforgiving upon them. 

Kevin is soothed by the calm that comes with it, but his ease doesn’t last long enough. Aaron rolls the sleeves of his ridiculously long lab coat before looking up at the sky in thought, the words “You think I’m fucking stupid,” coming out of his mouth. 

“Excuse me?” Kevin asks, sending a weird look in his direction.

Aaron doesn’t reply for a while, his face calm and nonchalant. Kevin had meant what he said, then — he is nothing like Andrew in spite of their identical features. Aaron holds an ease Andrew can’t quite have: he had no strict moral code to follow, no invisible threats to his pride looming over his head. Aaron, more often than not, was just angry. Kevin could understand that better than he could understand Andrew’s tangled mess of behavior. 

“You,” he elaborates, “think I’m fucking stupid.” Aaron reaches a hand up to flick the border of Kevin’s hat. “I could see this from a mile away. You were sucking the soul out of Josten’s body with that kiss.” 

Kevin blinks, dumbfounded. “What?”

“Oh, please. You don’t think I’m that fucking dumb, do you?”

“I—” he stammers, “why did you pretend to not know?”

Aaron shrugs. He leans against a car that is definitely not his, eyes still trained to the stars, the depiction of nonchalance. Kevin trusted it: Aaron never lied to make people comfortable. “I have no interest in entangling myself with whatever this is,” he replies, popping a lollipop from the pocket of his coat and into his mouth. He fishes for another one in his other breast pocket, and offers it to Kevin.

He takes it, unsure, but doesn’t bring it to his mouth. Aaron crosses his arms, the handle of his lollipop hanging from his lips. “When did that happen?” he asks. 

Kevin presses his lips together. “Andrew— he knows. This isn’t a me and Neil situation. It’s...” — he motions awkwardly — “Us, I suppose.”

“Hm,” Aaron hums understandingly. He leans the back of his head against the car, and Kevin has no choice but to mirror his position, tipping his own head back to look at the stars. It was easier than looking at Aaron. “Did my brother ask?”

“Yes,” he softly answers. It’s an old quarrel of theirs — Aaron, who had been at first the only one to take Kevin’s side after Baltimore, could not stand the thought of Kevin trusting Andrew so freely after it, even if he, himself, has mostly freed Andrew out of the confines of his own resentment. “It’s not the same as then.”

“Bare fucking minimum,” Aaron points out. 

“I know,” Kevin easily replies, because he does know. And he thinks of it often enough on his own. 

It takes Aaron a few more moments to speak again. “You were supposed,” he drags out slowly, “to say no. We said we would not let him get away with the things he did.”

Kevin shakes his head. “You know I didn’t.”

Aaron tips his head in consideration. “It’s different when you add romantic feelings into the mix. It’s a new perspective on this whole mess. Makes you,” he vaguely motions, “vulnerable. Gullible.”

“He’s not—” Kevin sighs. “He’s nice.”

“Again, bare fucking minimum. We’re talking bottom of the barrel of human decency, here.” Aaron shakes his head. “You can’t do this. You can’t— be so _vulnerable_ to him just because he has the decency of not throwing you away after he fucks you.”

It was such a sudden admission of worry Kevin felt his eyebrows knit together in a frown. “Are you worried about me?”

“I’m angry at you,” Aaron corrects him. “Angry at my brother. Josten is— he’s just as bad as Andrew. If Andrew tries anything with him, he’s getting his hands cut off. There is no power imbalance there. But you,” he points in Kevin’s direction meekly, movements blurry and tongue loose due to the booze, “you have a history. You know what Andrew is capable of.”

Kevin did know — both the good and the bad. “I’m not the same person I was, then,” he protests, though it feels more like an explanation; maybe an apology. “Your brother is… I owe Andrew nothing anymore. The deal was called off years ago. There is nothing Andrew can do to me that I can’t return.”

Aaron considers that answer for a while. “We didn’t make a pact, but we talked about this. We said we would never let him— control us again. I don’t see how this could work.”

“I’m not Andrew’s boyfriend,” he counterpoints, “there is no _this_ as far as I’m aware of. Not yet.”

“You’re too young to be cuffed to Andrew like this,” Aaron ignores him to continue. “You’re twenty-two, almost twenty-three. There are so many people who would fuck you for less than a wink and a smile. It doesn’t _have_ to be Andrew and his boytoy. It could be anyone.”

“Aaron.”

“What can you get from Andrew that you can’t get from someone who won’t hurt you?” Aaron asks. He sounds genuinely curious, if a bit annoyed. “I get that he and Josten don’t have much of an option, what with their cocktail of issues, but _you_ have. Why are you willingly walking into that? It can’t be loneliness, so help me God.”

“Aaron,” Kevin sighs, “I don’t have an answer you want to hear for that question.”

Aaron motions dismissively at him. “Clearly. You’re getting hospitalized and letting yourself fall back into your position as Andrew’s lap dog. You are not yourself anymore.”

His voice didn’t waver, but there was a resentment to his words. It reminded Kevin of Neil’s bitter, jealous face whenever he saw Jean — a reluctant feeling of being shoved back into second place. “Aaron,” he repeats, “this is not me choosing Andrew over you. You’re my friend. I don’t think of him any more than I think of you.”

“Doesn’t matter,” the blond evades, “because this is not about me. This is about you letting Andrew ruin your life again. We’re not even _that_ handsome for it to be worth it, Kevin.”

“That is not about what this is.” He taps his fingers against his own wrist, a nervous tell. “You think I’m going to forget about you to focus on Andrew.”

Aaron purses his lips, deciding on his next words. Kevin waits patiently. “Everyone does," he eventually concedes. "Andrew has a knack for taking everything away from me. I'm sure you remember."

And the thing is that, while Aaron's relationship with Andrew was complicated, his relationship with Kevin was not — they had come soon enough to the conclusion that no one of their lot would quite understand them the way they understood each other, safe maybe from Nicky, who could understand but was too filled with warmth to resent and hate like Kevin and Aaron did. They were friends; two sides of the same bitter coin; the inevitable holders of second place; scarred by the people who should have protected and loved them the most.

It occurred to him that that was the way Aaron saw it: him and Kevin against the world, because no one else had ever made an attempt to understand him before. He'd thought Kevin was something not even his brother could touch until he did, abruptly reminding Aaron that he could never have something just for himself as long as Andrew was in his life. Kevin understood the feeling, and felt sad that he did — he hadn't considered how this could affect Aaron, and in doing so, he added a new knife to Aaron's back, side by side with Andrew's.

"That's not true," Kevin quietly observes, his gaze falling from the stars to the scars on his hand. "I think of your brother a lot. I will not lie to you and say that Andrew means nothing to me." He traces his scar absentmindedly. "I'm sure he means something to you, too. But that doesn't mean— that never means you mean any less to me. Or that I'll allow Andrew to hurt me again. I'm many things, Aaron, but I'm not näive. You have to trust me."

"It's not you that I don't trust," Aaron calmly points out.

Kevin shakes his head. "You trust Andrew."

"I—" he sighs, wiping his face with his long sleeve. "I don't try as much as I should."

"It's understandable," Kevin replies, because while he does love Andrew, he gains nothing from pretending that he is a saint, and especially not in front of his brother. "Aaron, I don't want to hurt you."

Aaron remains quiet for a while. "You are not the problem here," he eventually confesses, a rare bout of vulnerability. How many times has he looked away from Aaron as his voice trembled, as his eyes watered, as his eyebags got darker — how many days Kevin had spent by his side, drinking his pain away, because he was just as miserable and couldn't do anything to help? He owed it to Aaron to listen, at the very least. "I want to believe that Andrew is not going to break you to irreparable damage. I want to, but unfortunately, I know my brother."

Kevin turns to look at him — the delicate slope of his nose, the pale skin, the barely-visible eyelashes. Andrew and Aaron would look young forever, and once, Kevin had wished to look like that. Once, he'd wanted to be lighter; have more delicate features; erase everything that made him his mother and father's son. It didn't matter that Aaron looked like the poster boy of caucasian children: Kevin thought there was strength in him to the likes of nothing science knew of yet, and he wanted that for himself.

"Aaron," he drags out, "I care about your opinion. I trust you. If you can honestly say that you are sure that Andrew is going to hurt me, I'll call it off."

Aaron turns to him abruptly, the lines of his face blown away in surprise. "You can't be serious."

"I am. I'll take my yes back."

"Kevin."

"Aaron."

"This is what I mean," Aaron stresses, "you're so _trusting._ You never think anyone has bad intentions. Everything with you is — second chances this, second chances that. God, how can anyone stand it?"

 _You're your father's son,_ Perris once said. Kevin knew that already. 

"I'm not trusting," Kevin limits himself to correcting. "I trust you, which is different."

"You don't know what you're saying."

"No, Aaron," he starts, feeling his voice take an irritated edge, "I _know,_ for once, what I'm saying. I'm perfectly capable of making my own decisions, and I'm well aware that my judgement might be clouded because of my feelings for Andrew. If you can keep your bias out of the way and tell me, honestly, that you think Andrew is going to hurt me, I'll call it off. _You_ ," Kevin emphasizes by poking Aaron's chest, "know him the best. You always know when Andrew is lying. And I trust you."

Aaron stares in his direction, grim like a ghost. "More than you trust him?"

"Just as much."

He dwells on that answer for a while, chewing on his lollipop, and Kevin pops his own into his mouth if only to have something to fidget with that is not his scarred hand. He knew Aaron trusted him — the problem was not a lack of trust, but the belief that Andrew could not love anything without destroying it first, and how Aaron has seen it happen before one too many times to not be wary now. Kevin had meant what he said: he trusts Aaron's judgement of his own brother in spite of everyone else that didn't. No one would ever know Andrew as well as Aaron, and vice-versa. There was no point in trying to deny it.

But Kevin had been more of a brother to Aaron than Andrew has, and that is hard to let go of. It was the companionship that came not out of blood, but understanding — brotherhood on purpose, with reasoning, a self-fulfilled prophecy. He understood Aaron's reluctance to let him go, and he did not want Aaron to think that Kevin didn't respect it. 

At last, Aaron concedes, "Stay here. I'll call Katelyn. You'll have your answer afterwards."

"Stay here?" Kevin frowns. "It's so cold."

Aaron rolls his eyes, but shrugs off his lab coat anyways, throwing it in Kevin's face. "You're still so annoying," he says, his features falling relaxed once more, almost boyish; juvenile. Whatever thought process that went through Aaron's head prompted him to say, at last, "We're good, Kevin. This isn't about you. Lose the ugly face."

In spite of himself, Kevin laughs, putting on Aaron's lab coat. It was big on him, probably bought in the wrong size, but it fit Kevin more or less well enough. "Okay," he replies, almost the sound of a promise under the right light. "I'll stay here. If I die, you're the one who'll explain it to Andrew."

Aaron rolls his eyes, grumbling something under his breath that Kevin doesn't catch before disappearing back into the parking lot, heading to what Kevin suspects is the inside of the club. It made no sense to call Katelyn in the middle of a noisy dance floor — Kevin wasn't stupid, and Aaron was just as bad of a liar as his brother. Still, he did nothing: if Aaron thought this was a conversation he needed to have with Andrew, Kevin was no one to intervene. Bitter were the wars between brothers, surely, but so were they their own to solve. 

In the end he found out that it didn’t matter whether Kevin believed or not that Andrew would hurt him; Aaron needed to have that conversation with his brother for many other reasons, and Kevin was just what prompted it to happen sooner than later. The twins were never going to be what they could have been had their lives been different, but it’s not enough reason to not try, at least, to be brothers. 

It gave Kevin a funny feeling to think that he was so intertwined down the root of Andrew’s family that, even if he disappeared from his life completely, he’d still linger like a bad knee, an incurable addition to a group of strays. 

It takes Aaron twenty minutes to come back, his eyes pensive but his chin held high, all lofty will and unbound, iron-like strength. Completely devoid of his costume, he just looks like a random college student, young and unimpressed. Aaron wasn’t the only one who depended on their relationship to feel normal, understood by a brother — Kevin could admit to himself that Aaron, while not soothing like Andrew, made him miss having a family in a way no one else quite did before. Riko had been Kevin’s only reference of a brother, but Aaron had given the word a different meaning; a new sound. Chosen family and whatnot. It was an odd feeling to belong, but Kevin liked it. 

They’re silent for one, two, three minutes, Aaron slotting himself beside Kevin once more, leaning against the car with his arms crossed. He stares into the empty parking lot, only cars as testimony, and calmly puts down, “Don’t call it off.”

Kevin knew that would be the answer. “Why?” he asks. 

“Don’t.”

“You weren’t calling Katelyn, were you?”

Despite their situation, Aaron almost smirks; an aborted act. “You’re not as stupid as you look.”

Kevin hums. “Did Andrew take it well?”

Aaron shrugs. “He looked like he’s heard it all before.”

“He always does.”

“He always does,” Aaron agrees, knocking his shoulder against Kevin’s. “Get into your stupid car. We’re going home.”

“What about—”

He motions dismissively. “They're coming.”

“Wait—” Kevin stops. “Did you and Andrew fight?”

Aaron’s mouth forms a foreign smile. “No,” he replies, “not everything is about you. Someone drank too much and ended up with puke in their shoes.”

Kevin makes a face. That used to be him. “Who?”

“See for yourself,” Aaron hums, motioning towards the exit, where Neil pushed through with Robin leaning against him, her otherwise soft features turned pale and disgusted. Kevin’s eyes flew to her socked feet, her boots nowhere to be seen; visual storytelling at its finest. From the side of Robin’s Neil is not holding up, Gigi gently holds her hair back, the bandana long forgotten now. 

Kevin doesn’t laugh, but he does push back a strangled giggle. From behind the horror show made up of them, Nicky and Andrew monitor their backs, the former still in his cowboy hat and the latter with the same expression of always — unmoved, only a faint trace of concern in his eyes. The image made Kevin fully laugh: they looked miserable in their Halloween costumes and defeated faces, the depiction of a long night. Andrew notices him laughing first, turning his head in Kevin’s direction almost immediately, and Kevin couldn’t do anything but laugh harder. 

Happiness had a foreign taste to it. Kevin didn’t know how to explain that the sight of them — just the sight of them — had made him so happy he’d bursted into uncontrollable laughter, elastic and amicable. They were a miserable family of strays, but weren’t they dear and near to Kevin’s heart. 

He switches places with Neil as soon as they’re close enough to do so, Kevin wrapping a careful arm around Robin’s waist as she continues to whine about something he can’t quite make out. Well enough: she smells of alcohol and perfume and sweat, but such is the life of a youth, and there is nothing Kevin can do except gently pat the top of her head and make sure that she gets into the backseat of his car safely. 

Andrew follows them with arms crossed, his eyes never leaving Robin as Kevin tucks her into his backseat, Gigi helping her with the seatbelt as if it was second nature to just reach out and do it. When Kevin pulls back to close the car door, Andrew’s eyes are now focused on him.

Kevin quietly hums, “She’s going to be back in one piece. Promise.”

All Andrew does is stare, though, silent and observant. He reaches a tentative hand out, cradling Kevin’s cheekbone and swiping his thumb over the queen tattoo, before pulling away completely, a brief touch he thought was the closest Andrew could get to actual reassurance. He didn’t know what Andrew was reassuring him of, but it worked — when he slipped back into the driver’s seat, he felt looser; at ease; all of the knots of his heart untied. Aaron glares at him from the passenger seat, no more happy about witnessing Andrew’s affection for Kevin as he was about witnessing Andrew’s affection for Neil, but says nothing, instead turning the radio on and complaining about stations for the entirety of the ride. 

He’s assigned Robin duty for the rest of the night — getting her to drink water, getting her to brush her teeth, even going as far as taking off her makeup for her, Gigi a steady companion by her side, holding Robin halfway in her lap to make Kevin’s job easier. It was such easy tenderness: they took care of her because it was the immediate instinct, as natural as seeing the sun in the morning. Andrew sat with them on the couch, quietly monitoring, and obediently picked up painkillers and a bucket when Kevin asked him to.

Once they get Robin into her room — actually Nicky’s, who had offered his for her to spend the night —, Kevin leaves her to the care of her friend, who hadn’t spoken much to him for the night, but still made sure to tell him a soft-spoken “Thank you,” as she leant against the doorway, her hair now fully down.

“She’s my friend,” Kevin shakes his head. “Of course.”

Gigi stares at him for a second before ominously pronouncing, as if a witch casting a spell, “You’re very kind, Kevin Day.”

He blinks at her. “What happened to your accent?”

“Goodnight,” she replies, closing the door before Kevin can bid her the same.

Kevin stands there, dumbfounded in the hallway, until Neil calls him back to the kitchen. Unable to do much, he follows the sound of Neil’s voice, shoulders slumping as he finally kicks off his — ridiculous — hat and sword to the corner, the accessories to his costume falling miserably to the living room carpet on his way to the kitchen. 

Andrew and Neil sit together in the counter stools, inevitably pulled towards each other like twin stars, watching Kevin’s every move as he reaches them. “What?” he asks, both their eyes on him at once too much to bear. It was like being stared at by stray cats; an ominous passage. 

“Where,” Neil starts, speaking behind his glass of water, “will you sleep?”

“Um,” Kevin frowns. “On the couch?”

Andrew’s sigh cuts through him so forcefully Kevin thought he’d just insulted his entire lineage. “It is not possible,” he slowly puts down, “that you are that stupid.”

Kevin rolls his eyes. “I already have a problem with _one_ person in my bed at night. Two is a bit of a reach.”

Neil hums, still studying Kevin from his spot. “I can take the couch.”

“No,” Kevin replies, sitting on the stool across from them. “As I said: a bit of a reach.”

“Kevin,” Andrew says, unconsciously leaning against Neil’s side as he stares right into Kevin’s face. 

“Andrew,” he echoes. “No. It’s fine. Go. I’ll see you two in the morning.”

But they don’t move. “It’s not going to hurt my feelings,” Kevin insists, “if you two go to sleep together.”

Neil presses his lips into a tight line. “You withdrawal, Kevin,” he points out. “You disappear when you want to.”

“I don’t want to,” he replies matter-of-factly. “I’ll still be here in the morning. I’m not a hallucination.”

It earns him a snort from Neil, and another assessing gaze from Andrew. “No,” the latter slowly puts down. “No, you’re not.”

“See.”

“And yet, you disappear.”

“I don’t—” Kevin sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You two are insufferably stubborn. I don’t disappear. I’m a real person, not a dream. If you look for me, I’ll be there. I’m not a ghost nor an apparition.”

“And yet,” Neil repeats Andrew’s words, “you haunt me.”

Kevin rolls his eyes. “You’re speaking nonsense.”

“Maybe,” Neil confesses. “I don’t want to go.”

“Go.” He motions dismissively at them. “I’ll be here in the morning.”

“Are you,” Andrew starts, in a quiet voice, “willing to promise?”

Kevin looks at him, pointedly. He doesn’t know what they think he’ll do if they leave, but he promises either way, “I promise I’ll be here in the morning.”

Andrew mulls that over on his head for a while. “Fine.” 

He’s the first to slide out of his stool, now in his sleeping clothes instead of the ones he wore for the club. It didn’t matter — they were all black, and Kevin thought he looked nice in each and every one of them. He saved a softer place of his heart for Andrew’s sleeping shirts, though: they looked soft, and nice to hold on to. “Abram,” Andrew calls, his tone low. 

“Neil,” Kevin calls, too, in the same voice. 

Neil rolls his eyes. “Fine.”

“While you’re going,” Kevin says, “can any of you untie me?”

Neither respond, but as Andrew passes behind Kevin’s back — and he knows it’s Andrew, because Neil’s steps don’t make a sound —, he feels warm fingers gently cascading down his back before tugging at the lacing of the corset, the fabric loosening around his torso almost immediately. Andrew’s arm encircles his waist to fully get rid of the corset, and he places it on the counter in front of Kevin before pressing one last touch to his back and disappearing into the hallway. 

Neil copies his movements by gently nuzzling between Kevin’s shoulder blades, leaving behind Andrew only after a quiet goodnight. 

Kevin liked being alone: he never thought he would, but the truth is in the way every muscle of his relaxes at the sudden silence, no one’s eyes to perform to but his own. He makes his way to the living room couch with quiet steps, kicking off his boots in the process, and turns the light off. As far into the future as he was, he still didn’t like the dark much — some part of his brain still believes he’ll find Riko’s eyes in it one day, staring back into forevermore, a haunting Kevin can’t wash off. It’s not as strong as it used to be, nowadays, but it still makes him envelop himself with the quilt, all the way up to his nose. 

He doesn’t sleep well. He doesn’t sleep at all. Kevin waits for the open window of the living room to signal the sunrise so he can kick off the quilt and turn on the lights once more. Perris tells him there are days that are good and there are days that are bad — as long as Kevin knows neither are permanent, he’ll be fine.

Kevin starts brewing coffee with the first sunbeams of the day, relaxed in that particular way where exhaustion can be masked by the comfort of sitting in silence, the world taking its time to quietly rise to the challenge. Early morning is his favorite, in spite of how much Kevin sees of it every day: when it’s so quiet, and so lonely, he can forget everything he is supposed to be, which, in return, reminds him of who he is. Kevin Day is not a very good person — not a very interesting one, too —, but he likes to think that he is not that bad. In fact, he’s heard before that he can even be quite lovely, sometimes.

Neil, as expected, is the first to wake up. Sunday morning tones his face a pleased red, the afterglow of rest, and Kevin sees him perk up as he finds Kevin in the kitchen, slowly chewing on Nicky's grapes. "Good morning," Neil greets, walking past Kevin and dropping a kiss to his nape on his way to the coffee. “You’re up early.”

He debates on lying for exactly two seconds before deciding on telling the truth. “Good morning,” Kevin greets back, voice rough due to misuse, “I didn’t sleep.”

From where he’d been pouring himself a mug of coffee, Neil’s movements still, his smile falling. “Why?”

Kevin shrugs. “I couldn’t. Good sleep is hard to come by.”

Neil is silent for a while before humming an agreement, settling beside Kevin on the table with his own mug of coffee. “Rest,” he says, “even if you can’t sleep. Lie down for a while.”

“I’m good, Neil,” Kevin politely declines, hesitating for a second before leaning his head against Neil’s shoulder, smelling the coffee and letting the steam touch his face. It’s not enough to get him to sleep, but it’s soothing — Kevin likes being soothed. “I’ll sleep when I get to Charleston.”

“Hm,” comes Neil’s reply, his free hand sneaking down Kevin’s back to rub against it. “Morning kiss?” he asks, eventually, after a brief stretch of comfortable silence.

Kevin adjusts himself to sniff at Neil’s mouth, which obediently falls open. His breath smells of coffee and mint toothpaste, an odd combination Kevin doesn’t mind tasting. Neil’s hand finds his face easily and he brings Kevin down for his kiss after a nod, his thumb lazily dragging up and down Kevin’s cheek. 

When he pulls away, Kevin goes back to leaning against his shoulder, if only because staring at Neil's face for too long inevitably brings back the thought of _he's not going to fight for me_. 

“Did Andrew wake up?” he quietly asks, just to have something to do with his mouth.

“Yes,” Neil hums, the vibrations of his throat soothing Kevin’s rattled psyche, “he’ll stay in bed for a little longer. He’s lazy.”

Kevin chuckles under his breath. “He is.”

Neil curls his hand over Kevin’s wrist before prompting, “I know there is a chance you may never feel comfortable sleeping with us, but there is a place for you, there. If you’ll have us, it’ll be your bedroom, too.” He caresses one of Kevin’s most ragged scars gently, a ghost of a touch. “There is always space for you. We can get a new bed. Separated ones, even, if it’ll be easier on you.”

Kevin makes a soft sound at the back of his throat. “Okay.”

“Okay yes, or okay you’ll think about it?”

“Okay, I’ll think about it.”

He knocks his chin against the top of Kevin’s head obnoxiously. “Pretty head of yours got a lot to think about.”

“Yeah,” he quietly agrees, “I know.”

They don’t really talk again until Andrew comes, the pair of them basking in comfortable silence as the world comes alive little by little, the chill of an autumn morning creeping up their backs. Soon enough Kevin will have to part from the safe haven of Neil’s skin, when Nicky and Robin inevitably wake up, but for now he can stay in it — for now he can brush his cheek against the fabric of Neil’s shirt and focus on the way his chest rises and falls.

Andrew walks into the kitchen with pillow marks on his face and a tangled mess of curly blonde hair on top of his head, his sleeping shirt rumpled and his armbands uneven. He looks nice — he always looks nice. He doesn’t stop to look at them on the way to the coffee machine, but he gently squeezes both their napes on his way back, settling across from them with his coffee mug. Kevin observes as he sips away at it, moving slowly, a lifetime away from the night before.

“I’m here,” he murmurs after a while, suddenly reminded of last night’s promise, “like I said I would be.”

Putting down his mug, Andrew agrees, “You are.”

“I haven’t disappeared.”

“Clearly,” Neil says, stealing one of his grapes. 

“Andrew,” Kevin calls, “say what you want to say.”

Andrew stills his hands around his mug. “We still have to talk.”

“Let’s talk, then,” he agrees, not unwinding himself from Neil. He’s sure Andrew won’t mind — he knows well enough that touching soothes Kevin more than anything else.

Neil digs his fingers into Kevin’s hair. “He means boundaries. Definitions. Andrew already knows about me, but we need to know about you.”

Kevin buries his nose on his shoulder. “Ask away.”

“Okay,” Neil replies, stealing a look in Andrew’s direction before going first. “What do you want us to be, Kevin?”

“What do you mean?”

“Definitions,” Andrew recalls, toneless. 

Kevin considers it for a moment. He’s not stupid — he’s thought about this enough by now to know the answer to that question. “I think,” Kevin slowly puts down, “that one week is too short of a time for me to decide if I want a relationship or not. Which is not to say,” he stresses, “that I don’t want this. I do, and I don't want you to doubt that. But— I don’t— I still don’t feel like I’m mine. I still feel like I’m property more often than not. And I can’t give myself to someone else if I don’t have me in the first place.”

“Which means?” Neil prompts.

“Which means that I want this, and I want you, but it will take some time until I can say I belong— _with_ you. And maybe I’ll never be able to say that I belong _to_ you. If you two want me,” Kevin addresses the two of them, still perched against Neil’s shoulder even then, “you will have to wait. You will have to have me just like this, for now.”

Andrew stares at him. “Explain.”

“Like we are,” he explains, “me coming to see you and you coming to see me. It doesn’t have to have— a label to be real. You don’t have to own me to have me. We can just… Be, at first.”

Neil trails his fingers down the back of Kevin’s neck. “I don’t mind waiting.”

Kevin turns to Andrew, studying his hands. He likes thinking of Andrew’s hands the most: they’re pale, rough, full of small marks and calloused from Exy, but they can be gentle. Kevin has seen it before. 

He slowly offers his hand towards Andrew, upturned against the tabletop, and questions, “Andrew?”

After a quiet moment of consideration, Andrew lets his fingertips rest against Kevin’s palm, tracing his lifeline. “I will wait,” he concedes, at last, digging his fingers against the softest parts of Kevin's palm.

"Not forever," Kevin silently promises. "I'm not going to disappear."

Neither of the two look like they believe him, but they also don't pull away. It has to be enough, for now. 

Kevin — commitless, free, property of no one — has to be enough, for now.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the kevineil period drama yearning really hits like crack to me. no sertraline for me today
> 
> also ! ! it is possible the next update might take a little longer than usual to come (nothing longer than a week or so, but still longer than 5 days as per costume) so will not give u a specific date, but i Will tell u to have a good day regardless :)


	8. call it what you want to

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw past mentions of sexual assault, past abuse, eating disorders, and body issues related to all three. in this house we recognize the nests fucked up perspective on intimacy and realize that any and all of the hookups kevin had there were literal child grooming
> 
> also thank u for waiting :) i hope u can forgive me from the unusual wait as this chapter is 30k words long

The last person Kevin kissed before Andrew and Neil was River Yazzie, and like most things about them, it had been deliciously confusing and radically eye opening.

River had been his first actual one night stand outside of the Nest, back when the two of them weren’t as tight knit as they now are, bound by friendship only the two new additions to an already family-like team could have. That night — crashing into his own bedroom, kind hands digging on his hair, not a single drop of alcohol on neither of their tongues, coming apart under the palms of someone who meant him no harm —, though unforgettable as it was, seems to have happened a lifetime ago, buried under the quick motions of mundane life.

But Kevin remembers everything: from the anticipation to the casual aftermath, the way River tucked a piece of hair against the back of his ear and told him they were not looking for a lover as much as they were looking for a friend a memory impossible to lose under so many failed and brutal hookups from the Nest, all guided by Riko. It had been his first taste of a normal, Riko-less attempt at casual entanglement, and it inevitably unfolded a lifetime of new horrors for Kevin, who now had a point of reference to what a healthy encounter should look like, which in return shone light over every possible way he’d been harmed in the Nest. 

It was a double edged sword. On one hand, River’s care had awakened something in Kevin that otherwise would have remained buried: his willingness to trust kind hands and hand over control with the knowledge that the other person would not use it against him, a feat impossible to have had in the Nest, where any vulnerability could cost you an eye or a broken leg. On the other, it contrasted brutally with the life he left behind, and the traumatizing events he’d repressed on the basis that they had once been just a normal day in his life — all of the times control was taken rather than given, all of the things done to him unconsented to and unasked for, all of the violent ways with which frenetic hands crossed over his body without a care for what Kevin would think of it. 

It was the tenderness he was so freely given that made him realize every time he’d been hurt before, and, ironically as it was, said tenderness was also what got him in a hospital bed, months before — said tenderness triggered in Kevin a visceral reaction, a desperate grasp, the realization that almost everyone that came before had only done to him more damage. Kevin could count on one hand all of the times someone cared for him with the same good intentions as River’s, and one of those had been his girlfriend of years at the time, so he found that it didn’t really count if it was the expected bare minimum. 

Better than anyone, Kevin knows that history repeats itself. He knows, as soon as he steps in his apartment after the weekend at Palmetto, that Andrew and Neil’s loving hands would, in one way or another, remind him of all of the times a hand had touched him the wrong way. And the truth is that Kevin doesn’t know what to do to make the flood of awful, no good memories of the Nest to stop — doesn’t know how to explain to himself or to anyone else that sometimes kindness seems like the perfect proof of how many times you’ve been thoroughly hurt before, if only because of how odd it feels. 

He gives himself two to three days to drop. Knowing the way his mind works, Kevin knows there is no running from this: all he can do is prepare himself and organize his life around the inevitable breakdown that comes after a new experience with touching. He thinks he should probably talk to Perris about this, or perhaps even Andrew, who would surely understand it better, but where there is pain, there is shame — it occurred to Kevin one too many times how embarrassing it was to be so profoundly moved by being treated nicely, and there are still no words in the English language capable of making any of this suffering palatable; any of this easier to speak of. 

Kevin lives in the certainty that he’d die with all of this unburied trauma within him, never speaking of word of it to friends or family, and Perris often tells him that it’s okay if he never wants to share this part of his history with his loved ones. _Trauma is not a bonding exercise, Kevin,_ he used to tell him in their first sessions, _you don’t owe yours to anyone._

 _But I need to learn to talk about it,_ Kevin insists, sometimes, _how else will I ever be close to anyone?_

Perris’ response is often _Don’t confuse shared trauma with friendship,_ words so foreign to Kevin they felt like a slap in the face the first time he’d heard them. 

Another thing Kevin doesn’t quite understand: friendship. Siblinghood, fraternity even, he gets — he gets the way Robin feels like she was born from the same cherry tree bark as Kevin, the way Aaron’s mannerisms and anger are so deep within him they are almost one, the easy telepathy he has with Jean. He gets how two people can be brought together by shared experiences and become part of each other, the motions of life turning them into inseparable moving parts, but friendship was an entirely new concept, oddly foreign for a man whose life had been so marked by not-friendship-but-basic-human-kindness-Kevin-once-thought-was-friendship.

The Stingrays, while lovely, are confusing in that way. They had no reason to get closer to Kevin outside of the court, and even less reason to integrate him in their dynamics — it was such abrupt, unpremeditated courtesy he found it hard to live with as rookie in their team, though the estranged feeling has dimmed now, enough for Kevin to recognize that, as far as the word goes, they were his friends and he was theirs. There was no other term to describe the relationship that they had: they were friends. They were part of Kevin’s life in that easy, intricate way only a friend could be, porous and entangled and so made up of each other that intimacy was a second skin to never be shed out of. 

He knows this because he’s seen the way they act around each other, and he’s compared it to how they act around him. He’s seen Sidney sit between Sarah’s extended legs and allow her to crop the underpart of her hair, fingers carding through the gingerness carefully; he’s seen Yonah and Jean tip back shot after shot with the same mischievous smile and competitive nature; he’s seen Daniel hold out a book for Kevin that he mentioned once, in briefness, and that Daniel just so happened to have lying around his things. Kevin has _seen_ what their friendship looks like: he just did not know how to compute it in his head. They were tight as thieves, a peaceful ecosystem, and Kevin had just dropped right in the middle of it with a hand on the past and another on the future. 

It occurs to him often that there is no word complex enough to describe the relationship he has with those people, and the things they’d done for him. Even River, with their evading answer and teasing smiles, seemed to be so out of Kevin’s understanding — everything from the way they laughed at Kevin’s half-hearted jokes to the way they held out their hand for Kevin to fidget with when he has to does not make a lick of sense, and Kevin doesn’t want to think that it’s because he doesn’t deserve it, but rather because he is not used to it. That’s the crux of the matter, Perris thinks: Kevin doesn’t understand intimacy that is neither sexual nor forged from trauma. An unsurprisingly pathetic conclusion to an unsurprisingly pathetic problem.

This odd paradox of being hurt by kindness is what leads Kevin’s life more often than not, but in a moment like this — sitting on River’s passenger side, a book held up to his nose and the wind blowing on his face — Kevin finds that he doesn’t quite need to have it all figured out now. For as long as these people will have him, he will gladly have them; even if it hurts. 

It’s an usual arrangement: River drives because they enjoy watching the road disappear behind them, and Kevin sits in the passenger seat because the wind reminds him that he is free to go wherever he likes with whoever he pleases. Sometimes he reads out loud, novels and tales to keep both their heads working, and sometimes he just watches everything around him, the world a soft blur as they push through the city — and, often, the cities around Charleston — with no rush to get anywhere. It was a delightful taste of freedom, running away without disappearing, and Kevin loved it much more than words could say.

“What book is this?” River hums from the passenger seat, their long hair tied into a bun with a pencil cutting through it, two long strands in the front shaking with the wind. Kevin always thought they looked nice — in the Nest, long hair was frowned upon whether you were a man, a woman, or neither. “You’ve been reading for half an hour and I still have no clue.”

Kevin, perhaps drunk with the newfound sense of belonging, only laughs, the sound of it disappearing into the wind. “It’s a period piece,” he replies, turning to the side to show River the cover, “Emma’s the name. Jane Austen.”

“You’re such a nerd,” they point out, though they don’t look one bit bothered by it. “Daniel got you that?”

“Yes,” Kevin hums back, “on our last day at Boston. You were there.”

“Was I?” River wonders aloud, a ring-filled hand gripping at the wheel with such confident ease Kevin found himself a bit jealous of it. “Boston was such a blur. All I remember is the event and that man — what was his name? I’m sure you know, he was your friend.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Andrew?”

River smiles, and Kevin knows they were just dying to bring up the subject of Andrew. “The very one. Are you collecting boyfriends like Pokemón cards, by the way?”

“Not my boyfriend,” Kevin corrects them, kicking off his shoes to rest his feet over the glove compartment. River doesn’t really care about it as long as Kevin doesn’t dust their windows, so the laziness is easily forgiven. “You need to stop saying that. One day you’re going to cause a fight.”

“With whom?” they question, motioning dismissively before clutching at the wheel once more. “I have no interest in the white men you bewitch, Kevin, I’ll tell you that. If they even look at me the wrong way I will have it filed as a hate crime.”

Kevin huffs. “That’s so inappropriate.”

River nods. “Inappropriate is what I’m often called, yes.” They take a turn back into the city, white sweater catching the faint afternoon sunlight — the one that comes just before it rains —, and it’s quiet for only a moment before River inquires, “But since I’ve already been called inappropriate, I want to know why your choice of men is those who would be at the very front of Nazi propaganda.”

“ _River,_ ” Kevin reprimands, letting the book fall to his lap to cross his arms. “Stop saying that. Andrew has hazel eyes. He would _not_ be used for Nazi propaganda.”

They make a noncommittal sound. “Josten, then. Blue eyes.”

“And Polish ancestry,” Kevin points out. “You’re bad at History.”

“Yes, clearly,” River replies, unmoved, “but my point stands. Their ancestors were dying of the plague while yours were inventing Astronomy. You’re meant for better.”

Kevin sighs, raking a hand through his hair. “Again, that’s wrong: the Black Plague happened in the mid-1300s while Egyptian Astronomy began in prehistoric times. Before Christ, even.”

“Don’t say that name in my car,” River warns, tipping their head towards Kevin, “I will make you walk all the way back to the Court.”

“What name? Christ?”

“Two strikes, Kevin.”

Kevin chuckles. “It’s not his fault that people were enslaved and colonized in his name. He was a real man, once. Whether he was divine or not is up to you, but he was real.”

“As far as I’m concerned, this man was the one who took homeland away,” is what River answers, in that definite tone of theirs that tells Kevin there will be no changing of their mind. He doesn’t care, either way — River’s beliefs are so shaped by their worldview there is no point of trying to convince them of otherwise. “And, anyways, as I said: don’t say that name in my car.”

The other names Kevin couldn’t say in River’s car (and presence) were, respectively: Christopher Columbus, almost every politician Kevin knew, two or three singers Kevin hasn’t heard of before and — apparently — a fellow professional player who had been recently photographed wearing a native headpiece as a Halloween costume. Kevin found all of the restrictions rightful, and did not quite care enough to debate against the Jesus Christ ban, either; he could see why River doesn’t like the man.

Kevin pretends to zip his mouth and throw away the keys, earning himself rolled eyes and a huffed laugh. He likes River’s fierce grip on the people they surround themselves with: their first words to the team were a brief greeting and a warning that River would not respond to the wrong pronouns, which meant that they were willing to ignore the offender into oblivion until addressed rightfully. It was a brave thing to say on their first day, but it had been inspiring — River was not willing to lower his standards for anyone, and their boundaries had been set in stone from day one. More often than not, Kevin wishes he could absorb River’s assertiveness by osmosis. 

“Are we already heading back to Court?” Kevin asks eventually, his surroundings becoming more and more familiar as River returns to the heart of the city once more. “Practice should’ve ended already.”

The South Carolina Stingrays’ lineup was so big their practices were often divided into two teams which practiced at different times — Kevin and River’s team had an early morning practice today, starting at seven in the morning and ending at three in the afternoon, leaving them the entire evening to leisure around. River still went back, though, because Yonah often stayed for the two practices, being the captain, and they were the one who picked her up and dropped her off at her apartment when she was too tired to drive. It was an odd one, their friendship, but Kevin thought it was endearing in a way: Penn State players sticking together, reunited after River’s injury took them away from their last year as a college player.

“You tell that to Yonah,” they mumble distractedly, tapping their fingers against the wheel. “She’s worse than you.”

“She’s not,” Kevin corrects, “I just don’t have the keys to the Court anymore.”

“Yes, because you got _hospitalized,_ ” River reminds him easily, “so it was either taking your keys away or Couch Myoui getting publicly dragged for inhumane working conditions.”

“It wasn’t her fault. I did it on my own.”

River glares at him. “Not the point, Kevin.”

He leans back against his seat, looking out of the window. “Fine,” Kevin replies, “they should take her keys away, too.”

“I’ll steal them,” is what they say, and Kevin has no idea if it’s a joke or not, because River’s methods of helping were often extreme. They weren’t Andrew — River was a lot more prone to pleasantries, but they were not above taking direct action. It worked, more often than not: Kevin leaned on River to keep him from drinking during dinner parties and Exy events for a reason.

“No, you won’t.”

“Keep that mentality. When she starts asking around, tell her I wouldn’t do it.”

“ _River._ ”

“You,” they inquire, “are such a goody two shoes.”

“And you have a knack for causing problems on purpose.”

River shrugs. “And?’

“And nothing.” Kevin crosses his arms. 

The bickering goes on for as long as the car goes — Kevin suspects that they only stop because Yonah looks like Hell wrecked upon her as she drags herself to the backseat, her long hair wet and sticking to her forehead. “Don’t,” she grinds out when River’s about to turn on the engine, “Sarah and Sidney need a ride too.”

River turns to her. “Do you go around telling people they can ride with me without my permission?”

“Yes.”

They blink, turning back around. “Fine.”

Granted, River was not as close to the other Stingrays as they were to Kevin and Yonah, which made interactions between them and the others always odd to see. They were not unfriendly, far from it, but there was a different tilt to that relationship — something that made River more closed off, less of the confident person Kevin knows, if a bit defensive. 

It starts to rain soon enough as they sit in the parked car, waiting for the other two to come around. The fine drizzle picks up on strength after a brief moment of soft tapping against the roof of River’s car, an autumn shower to-be, and Kevin leans to the side just enough to see Yonah before asking, shortly, “Jean?”

She rolls her eyes. “Went home as soon as he saw the dark clouds. Took a cab.”

Kevin nods, sliding back into his previous position. Jean’s practice was often at the same time as Kevin’s, but on Mondays he’d switch to afternoon practice to attend painting classes in the morning. Yonah often describes their relationship as infuriatingly domestic, and since Kevin does not know how to defend himself from the truth, he usually lets it slide by agreeing with her. 

Sarah is the first to crowd into the backseat, her neck-length hair looking even shorter than usual as she organizes it into two spiky pigtails. Kevin had come to understand all of the Stingrays more or less, but Sarah remains a mystery, if only because she is almost too affectionate — her smile was not unwavering, surely, but Kevin can’t remember the last time he’d heard her call his name. River once joked that she uses endearment terms more than she uses commas, but Kevin was quite convinced that was true: since the first time he met her, months ago, and told her he didn’t care about what she called him, it’s always been _Kevin, darling_ this and _dear_ that.

He doesn’t mind it. At first Kevin took it as romantic advances from her side, but it wasn’t the case — Sarah and Daniel, he came to find out, had been dating for the past two years under the media’s nose, their relationship still yet to be leaked. Yonah had reported everything about their get-together to Kevin, even if he didn’t ask; it was, similarly, how he came to find out that the Stingrays had a tradition of sharing stories of each other completely unprompted. 

Odd, he supposes, but endearing. Kevin often wonders if they had any stories of him to share. 

“Hi, River, dear, I’m sorry for making you drive me home,” Sarah smiles apologetically, taking off the hood of her jacket now that she wasn’t in direct risk of getting soaked in the rain. “You can just leave me down Yonah’s street, I can get a lift.”

River motions dismissively at her. “Nonsense. That’s dangerous. What’s your address?”

Her face gentles. “Dan’s house. You’ve been before.”

It’s true — the last get together of Stingrays had been at Daniel’s suburban home, hosted by his incredibly enthusiastic Brazilian mom, and River had been the one to drive Kevin and Jean there. They hum, “I got you. Don’t worry.”

Sarah places a hand on their shoulder, squeezing softly before letting go completely. She turns to greet Kevin with a smile that’s less apologetic and more endeared, her eyes disappearing under the softness of it. “Kevin, darling, how are you? How were your weekend plans? Did you have fun?”

“Kevin doesn’t have fun,” Yonah points out from her spot at the very corner of the backseat, huddled under two jackets that were way too big for her frame. After just a few days on her team, Kevin came to the conclusion that Yonah is the type of person who does not care about looking ridiculous, even if it’s so evident it becomes impossible to ignore. 

“Yes, I do,” he corrects her, turning around on his seat to stare at the pair of them. Sarah was the exact physical opposite of Yonah: with a slim figure and long, long legs, she was almost Kevin’s height, holding herself with the grace of a ballerina. To this day, Kevin doesn’t understand how a person can go from professional ballet to professional Exy, but she is a good striker, so he lets it slide. “It was fun. Did you have fun with Daniel?”

Sarah grins. “We took his cousins trick or treating. It was a first for them.”

Kevin nods. “That’s nice.”

“Yes,” she agrees, the visual depiction of fondness. “We’re taking Max trick or treating, too, on the 5th. You should come.”

He considers it for a second: the twin’s birthday is just two days away, granted, but they both told Kevin there wasn’t going to be a celebration. If anything, the two of them had explicitly instructed Kevin to not buy gifts — which he promptly ignored and instead chose to buy gifts — and to visit only if he could. Andrew and Neil had been a little more insistent on coming down to see Kevin instead of Kevin coming up to see them, but that wouldn’t happen until after their game on the 6th, which leaves him an open window on Thursday.

Kevin found himself agreeing without even trying to. “Text me the time and the place and I’ll be there,” he promises.

“Be where?” Sidney asks as she opens the door to the backseat. Kevin turns to greet her on instinct, only to find Max hanging from her arms, his small head of ginger hair buried in Sidney’s covered shoulder, the two of them wearing matching yellow raincoats. She tucks herself just beside Sarah, Max firmly held onto her lap, and closes the door. “River, I’m _so_ sorry for the inconvenience, if you text me your bank account I can transfer you gas money.”

Again, River motions dismissively at her. “No need. Are we good to go?”

“ _Please_ ,” Yonah complains. “I just want to be home.”

That’s all the confirmation River needs — they turn on the engine once more, leading the car out of the parking lot, pouring rain dripping down the windows. 

“Be where, Kevin?” Sidney repeats, her eyes a shade or so darker than Neil’s light blue. Her hand creeps up the back of Max’s head gently, swaying her sleeping son side to side, and it is such a soothing sight. Kevin wouldn’t be caught dead admitting to it, but Sidney made him miss Kayleigh almost unbearably. “Did Sarah tell you we’re taking Max trick or—”

“Treating,” Sarah completes her sentence. “Yes, I did. He said he’ll be there.” 

Sidney’s face almost rips apart with a smile, though her words are soft as to not wake up her child. “Oh, he’ll be _so_ happy! I’m going as a knight and Max’s going as a dragon. You could go as— queen, or something. To match us.”

Max was, objectively, obsessed with Kevin in every way: a child-like admiration Kevin didn’t know how to deal with, if only because it was too pure to what he was used to. Kevin offers her a mild smile, “If you can find me a crown.”

“Leave it up to me,” she promises, a warm tilt to her voice. 

“Kid’s going to have a heart attack,” Yonah points out, her tone falling soft now that Max was in the car. “He’s going to tell all of his friends at school that he met Mr. Boring over there.”

Sidney nods, rubbing on Max’s back. “Kevin, you just put him at the top of the daycare food chain. He’s going to be the kid that met Kevin Day.”

He huffs. “There is no such thing as a daycare food chain.”

“There _is_ such a thing,” she disagrees in the same tone, “I’ve seen it before. The other parents look down on you, even. I’m a professional athlete and I still can’t make it into the cool moms inner circle.”

Sarah shakes her head delicately. “I doubt so. Max thinks you’re the coolest.”

“I’m not talking about Max,” Sidney hums, “I’m talking about the other parents. For some reason, I need them to like me _so_ much, it’s crazy. I even made cookies for the get-together earlier this year.”

Yonah scoffs. “Food poisoning the other parents won’t make you more popular.”

Sidney opens her mouth to reply, and Kevin tunes out of their banter to stare at the pitter pat of the rain against his window. River will drop him off first, given his apartment is the one closest to the Court, but he’s caught thinking that he wouldn’t mind staying here for a little longer: Kevin liked their easygoing discussions and the way they fell into each other like matching puzzle pieces, the sober tones of adult friendship unable to dim their clear fondness. Most of these people have known each other for years, and they had let Kevin into their group with no seconds thought to it, as if there was no need to second-guess a friend. 

The South Carolina Stingrays were the very nicest people Kevin had met in all of Charleston: they cared. No roundabouts — they cared. Their friendship had gotten Kevin through many and many a terrible day, and though they had no obligation to, they pulled him through the violent motions of adult life with grace. When the going got rough enough for him to get hospitalized, it were the Stingrays who made sure Kevin wasn't rotting away at his apartment during his days off: they would arrange themselves to run Kevin's errands with him, and as though it were the most natural thing to do, drive him to and fro his neighborhood almost inexhaustibly, anything and everything to remind Kevin that this was real and that he was alive. It was the gentlest type of power Kevin had ever seen; the one of friendship.

They didn’t know about Riko, didn’t know about the Moriyamas, didn’t know about the Nest — nothing kept them tied to Kevin except that they wanted him to be their friend, and, without noticing, that was just what he became. None of the people in this car would ever know the extent of Kevin’s trauma, or the fact that he’s made a deal with the mafia to be able to keep on living, but that didn’t make them love him any less; care for him any less. Now, more than ever, Kevin understood why Neil stayed with the Foxes even when his life was at risk: he couldn’t let them go. They were the only kindness he’d ever tasted before, and he was desperate to keep them. 

Kevin is not desperate to keep the Stingrays, given there is no looming guillotine pairing over his neck, but he hopes that they can be a part of his life for as long as it’s possible, and perhaps even more. There is no use in wishing for forever, but Kevin can only hope that the times they’ll spend together will be almost as long as that. 

River drops him off as soon as the sun starts to set, an explosion of goodbyes ringing his ears as he throws his jacket over his head and startles out of the car and into his apartment complex. Kevin greets the doorman on his way, but doesn’t stop for conversation as he clicks the button to the elevator and walks into it. The doors are about to close when someone slots a knuckly hand between them, making them slide open once more to accomodate a new passenger. 

The woman who walks in after him is the only neighbor whose name Kevin cared to remember, if only because her apartment is right next to theirs: Mrs. Luna is an elderly woman whose life was entirely dedicated to playing old Argentinian tunes on early Sunday mornings, throwing regular bingo nights for a brigade of other elderly ladies and asking, every time they meet and without fail, if Jean and Kevin are a couple, only to go off about how she supports same-sex couples on the same breath. Her first name is Miriam, which she insists is what Kevin should call her, but there is a charming eld to her that makes it impossible to address her with anything but respect, the grandmother-y ways of her toothy grin a balm to her rough smoker voice. 

“Mr. Moreau,” she greets, her nearly white hair soaking wet from the rain though she didn’t seem to care much about it. A woman her age should be more worried about colds, but Kevin knows better than to argue; Mrs. Luna listened only to what she wanted. “What’s an elderly woman supposed to do in this awful weather? It’s been years since it last rained like this. I didn’t think it was possible in this city. Ah, bright, beautiful Charleston. How it changed over the years.”

“Mr. Day,” Kevin corrects her, “I’m Kevin, not Jean.” He waits for her to press the button of their level, but eventually gives up on waiting and does it himself, the doors closing in front of them. “And yes, the weather. It’s going to be a rainy winter, it seems.”

Mrs. Luna blinks up at him as if she was just now seeing his face. “Ah, my bad, dear, I don’t have my glasses on me — the two of you are just so _tall._ It makes you easy to confuse. Wait a second.” She unfolds her glasses from the collar of her shirt, bringing them to her face. “Ah, _much_ better. How’s it going, dear? Any classes today?”

“I’m not a student anymore, Mrs. Luna,” he replies, “I’m a professional athlete.”

“I could swear I saw you leave for classes early this morning. I’m sure you remember — I asked about your shirt, even. Beautiful color. I love pink on you.”

Kevin shakes his head. “That was Jean, Mrs. Luna.”

“I see,” she nods, tapping on her chin gently. “Ah, _cariño,_ you’ll have to forgive me. Boys your age are so alike. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the other two. Ah — what were their names? We took the elevator together, once.”

In spite of everything, Kevin smiles, his eyes falling to his feet. “Mrs. Luna, those were my friends, Andrew and Neil.”

Mrs. Luna claps her hands together in excitement. “I got them right, at least! Ah, yes, I remember: the one with the scar had such a lovely nose. Good nose. A handsome nose. Big like mine.” She taps at the tip of her nose. “When will they visit again, Mr. Day? You have to introduce me to your friends. I’m sure you’ve heard mine before. They’re rather loud on bingo night, I admit.”

The elevator doors open with a loud ding, prompting the two of them to stand by their respective doors. “Next time I’ll introduce them to you, Mrs. Luna,” Kevin promises, even if he knows she’ll forget the promise by the next morning. He rests a hand against his door handle, scratching his keys against the lock. “I hope the rest of your day goes well.”

Mrs. Luna smiles with all of the strength in her elderly body, a sight so endearing Kevin could forget the fact that she wouldn’t be able to remember his face if she was paid to do it. “You too, Mr. Moreau!”

He doesn’t bother correcting her as he unlocks the door. She’ll come around soon, surely. 

Kevin kicks off his shoes as soon as he is inside, raking a hand through his damp hair and getting rid of his jacket. The lights are on — he is about to call for Jean, but there is no need; from his spot at the dinner table, Jean hums a, “Mrs. Luna called me Mr. Day today,” in lieu of hallo. He turns around to look at Kevin. “Twice. Said she loves your pink shirt.”

He is wearing the pink shirt in question, the sleeves going all the way to his knuckles. Kevin rolls his eyes fondly. “I just bumped into her in the elevator,” he replies, reaching for one of the sweatshirts thrown haphazardly over the back of the couch and slipping it on before beelining for Jean. “I think she’ll never learn.”

“Maybe one day,” Jean suggests, leaning his elbows against the table. “Come here, let me show you something.”

Kevin, who was already planning to go to him anyways, peeks over his shoulder in interest. “Pie,” he says, blinking in confusion. “I’ve seen a pie before.”

Jean offers him a pair of plastic utensils. “Here. This is dinner.”

“Dinner,” Kevin echoes, sitting on the chair next to Jean and staring at the entire pie displayed in front of them. It doesn’t look like the ones Andrew buys and eats entirely on his own — this one looks high-end, expensive, the evidence of a premeditated crime. 

He stares at Jean, opening his mouth to argue, but is cut off. “This is dinner,” Jean insists, unmoving and unrelenting, “so eat.”

“Jean,” Kevin starts. 

“No. Eat.”

“Jean.”

“Kevin.”

Kevin takes the plastic fork from his hands, if only so Jean gets it out of his face. He could recognize Jean’s attempt — clumsy, surely, but when hasn’t it been? — at taking care of him, and the realization made him frown. “I’m—” _alright,_ he was about to say, but cut himself off before the lie could come off. “I’m not doing… Too bad.”

Jean swipes his thumb over Kevin’s eyebags delicately, a foreign touch. “You barely sleep.”

Physical affection wasn’t odd to them, but after the years apart, it had become awkward, if a bit unusual. Neither had the mental energy to unpack the bad associations they had with receiving affection from the other, and so it was always a hit or miss when it came to touching. Still, Kevin found himself leaning against the touch, starved for Jean’s affection. “I’ve been having nightmares,” he murmurs, at last, a sorely earned admission, “ever since Palmetto.”

“Hm,” Jean replies, retreating his hand without thinking much of it. Kevin fought the urge to protest. “Did something happen there?”

“It’s,” Kevin softly answers, “the same as before. With River. I don’t know why.”

There was no point in denying what happened with Andrew and Neil to Jean, especially when Kevin knew they’d be coming to visit a lot more now — he doesn’t know what Jean thinks of it, but he hadn’t appeared to be too surprised when Kevin told him, so he chose to take that as a good sign.

“Eat,” Jean insists, at last, pushing the pie towards Kevin. “It’s blueberry. You love blueberry.”

“The last time I had that was years ago.”

He offers Kevin a look of well-meaning disdain. “You think I don’t remember the one time a year they let us eat dessert?”

Kevin clams his mouth shut. “Okay,” he replies, staring at the pie as if it was a foreign new element to the periodic table. “Do I— take a _slice_ or—”

“No. No need.” Jean leans the side of his head against his closed fist, observing Kevin. “You need to learn how to indulge, Kevin. It’s been years already. No one is going to come take you kicking and screaming because you had pie for dinner.”

“You’re right,” he reluctantly agrees. Kevin _knows_ this — it’s just hard to get rid of habits when they’ve been hammered into you since you were a child. Tentatively, he sinks his plastic fork into the middle of the pie, destroying the perfectly aligned dough pattern. Kevin brings the fork to his mouth, chewing slowly, as if the pie would disappear. 

When he finally swallows, Jean’s eyes light up ever so slightly. “See. Nothing happened. It’s just pie.”

Kevin nods, even if he knows it isn’t. He takes another bite, then another, then another — as many as he can, the warmth in Jean’s eyes the only thing keeping him from letting the fork fall to the ground. Kevin doesn’t want the approval of anyone else, surely, but Jean’s is different; he owed so much to Jean that he couldn’t help but want to please him, if only to ease the swell of his own guilt. It was a selfish feeling, but it got him through an entire slice and a half of pie. He doesn’t even remember the last time he’s had anything this sweet in abundance.

Afterwards, Jean cuts himself two slices and eats them as they watch a documentary in the living room. It’s a good distraction for the crushing guilt Kevin feels just as soon as he sits on the couch, inevitably fidgeting with his fingers as a way to keep himself from reaching for Jean for comfort. If Andrew was here — if Andrew was here Kevin would lean close to him until he grabbed his face and told him to _stop fidgeting, Kevin. It is really that simple._

Or Neil — Neil would let Kevin hide his face in his shoulder, until this guilt disappeared, until he felt ready to look down and realize that he has a body, after all, and that it belongs to him more than it belongs to the ghost of Riko Moriyama. If they were here, Kevin could’ve just reached out and hid into their arms until this feeling disappeared, but they weren’t here and, likewise, Kevin had nowhere to hide. 

This is something he hasn’t told Perris yet: the horror of realizing every day that this is the same body that’s been used against him many times before. Maybe Kevin wouldn’t have so many problems with himself if he didn’t know of the thousand or so ways him and his body had been violated in the past, all of them permanent in his memory. He doesn’t _want_ to have this body anymore: he doesn’t want to be stuck in what should feel like his home, but is often more akin to a prison. For once, Kevin wishes he could break free of it, escalate the walls of his throat and jump out of the body that had only caused him pain after pain, an everlasting cycle of belonging to everyone but himself. 

Is this always going to be like this, Kevin wonders: will he always feel as if he doesn’t have control of himself, or will this, too, one day pass? Will Kevin be a toy for others’ enjoyment until eternity, will he be used and passed around like an old library book forevermore? Is that all there is to him — a carcass to use and control? 

_You are my son,_ is what his father told him, once, when Kevin had voiced this concern, years ago. A simple answer. Am I an object? _No, you are my son._ Kevin has no idea what this is supposed to mean, and he doesn’t have the mental strength to grab the phone and ask. He’s pretty sure he’s been ignoring texts from Neil, and that Andrew might call and he won’t have it in himself to pick up, and Robin must have been wondering what he’s so busy with that he can’t answer to her, and, and, and — Kevin is _slipping away._ He’s disappearing, like he promised not to. 

No control of himself. None whatsoever. That’s why they had Riko control every minute of his life: Kevin couldn’t do it on his own. He doesn’t know how to live life now that he has to. 

When Jean retreats to go sleep, murmuring a soft goodnight to Kevin, it takes him ten minutes of staring into the turned off, dark television before slipping into his own bedroom, fighting the urge to smash his head against the wall to get it to _stop thinking._ Kevin weighs the pros and the cons of doing so: Jean would wake up. Jean would know. Maybe it would be strong enough for him to pass out. He could end up in the hospital again. God — in the hospital two days before Andrew’s birthday. Just how awful could Kevin be?

He is startled out of his thoughts by his phone ringing. Kevin knows who it is before he even sees the screen, and finds himself craving the sound of Andrew’s voice, rough and dragged as it was, to soothe his mind. It wouldn’t be enough to bring him any peace, but it would be a distraction, and sometimes that is all Kevin can muster. Sometimes there is no way to heal a wound; sometimes it just has to be put to rest until you can learn to live with it. 

“Kevin,” is what Andrew says when he picks up the phone, toneless. A hello. 

Kevin sighs. “Andrew.”

He hears the sound of a lighter flickering. Andrew does this, sometimes — calls to keep himself from smoking. Kevin doesn’t know why Andrew thinks he’d be good enough of a comparison to the cigarettes, but deems it irrelevant. He’ll never understand the way Andrew works. “Are you alive?” Andrew asks.

It’s his way of asking _are you okay?,_ except that it leaves leeway for Kevin to say yes without it being a lie. “Yes,” he replies, a routine; ritualistic. “Apparently.”

Another flicker of the lighter. “You have not been answering your texts.”

“Andrew.”

“Kevin.”

Kevin runs a hand through his hair. “Your birthday.”

“What about it?” Andrew answers, unmoved.

“I don’t want to worry you on your birthday.”

A pause. “Is there something I should be worried about?”

“No,” he answers, but Kevin can’t lie — not to save his life. He maneuvers himself around the question: “You shouldn't worry about things you can’t change.”

“Kevin,” and now Andrew’s tone is more pressing, almost tangible, and Kevin wants to disappear in him. He wants to wake up the next morning and realize he’d merged into one with Andrew’s chest. “Talk.”

“I’m talking.”

“I will not repeat myself.”

“Then don’t.”

Two flickers of the lighter; quicker now. He’s got Andrew feeling agitated — a wave of guilt so strong passes through him Kevin has no choice but to sigh out, “Ask.”

“What is going on?” Andrew asks, punctuating every word with a flicker. 

Kevin purses his lips. “I haven’t been well. Not since Halloween.” 

It’s silent for a while. Kevin thinks Andrew is going to be quiet for the rest of the night before he asks, in a slow voice, “Was it me walking in on you and Neil?”

“No,” Kevin softly replies, an immediate response. “It’s not your fault, Andrew.”

“Then what?”

He taps his fingers against the edge of his bed. There’s no point in lying to Andrew about this: if Kevin doesn’t have a convincing answer, he’ll think it’s his fault, and they’ll never grow out of this quarrel no matter how many times Kevin tries to insist that this has nothing to do with him. Kevin knows Andrew — knows his every flaw, knows he is unable to let things go, knows his need for answers can get ugly. 

Kevin pinches the bridge of his nose gently. “Andrew,” he calls, “I will tell you. But listen to me — listen to me _carefully._ I don’t want to talk about this again. I don’t want to be asked about this again. This is all of this subject you’ll ever get. If it were for me, I would taken this to the grave. Do you understand?”

Andrew’s answer, though small, is firm: “Yes.”

It takes him a minute to sort out his thoughts into words, but the sound of Andrew’s steady breathing helps. “Every time,” Kevin starts, inevitably fidgeting with the hem of his sweatshirt, “every time I enjoy it when someone touches me, I’m reminded of every time I didn’t enjoy it but didn't know, then. And I _don’t_ want to tell you about that. I don’t want to describe it; I don’t want to specify; I don’t want to recall it. Okay, Andrew? I don’t.” He rakes his hand through his hair. “Everything in the Nest was normalized. It was— I never thought twice about it before I had something good to compare it with. And I don’t want to talk about it, Andrew, because if I do, I might never forget it.”

The silence that follows it is filled only with Andrew’s breath, and Kevin focuses on it to not have to focus on what he just said. At last, after being quiet for so long Kevin thought he’d not get an answer at all — which he wouldn’t mind; would perhaps even prefer —, Andrew drags out, his voice steady, “I will never ask about this again.”

The following sigh is of relief. “Thank you,” Kevin murmurs. He lies back on his bed, facing the ceiling, but feels too exposed; too vulnerable. Kevin curls into a ball, blanket covering almost his entire body, and lets the phone rest against the side of his face. He wants Andrew’s voice and Andrew’s hands and Andrew’s eyes — he wants him to drag the sadness out of Kevin like an animal carrying its prey with its teeth. “Andrew, talk to me. Anything. Tell me anything. I just want to hear your voice.”

“Idiot,” Andrew replies, but his voice is gentle. Kevin doesn’t think he’d ever heard it this soft before. “I have nothing to say to you.”

“Save that it’s me you will be telling this nothing to,” Kevin observes quietly. 

Andrew hums. “Save that it’s you I will be telling this nothing to,” he agrees, the rough drag of his voice almost earthy; an anchor to leverage himself with. “Ask what you want to ask, Kevin.”

“How’s Neil?” Kevin asks, voice barely above a whisper. “Are you well? How was your day?”

He hesitates for a second before replying, “Neil is fine. He misses you.” The flicker of the lighter again. “I am well. Class. Practice. The same.” 

Kevin makes a sound of understanding. “Me too. River took me for a drive after practice. Then my neighbor called me by Jean’s name and asked me about you and Neil. Then I had— pie for dinner. Like you do, sometimes.” He traces the scars on his own wrist calmly, reverently. “It was a good day. I’m not well, but it was a good day.”

Andrew is quiet for a moment. “I will send Neil to you this weekend.”

It is so abrupt — Kevin feels himself start into soft laughter. “What, like a package?”

Another moment of silence. “I am asking,” Andrew clarifies, “for your permission.”

“Of course, Andrew,” he replies, “you two always have a place here, if you need one.”

“You are not well.”

“No,” Kevin agrees, because there is no point in lying, “but you comfort me.”

From the other side of the line, Andrew scoffs. “I am not doing anything.”

Kevin hums. “Your voice,” he explains. “The sound of your breath. Your face. I love your face. It’s comforting.”

“You are not seeing it.”

He rolls his eyes. “I know what it looks like, Andrew.”

“Hm,” Andrew answers. 

For a moment, Kevin closes his eyes, listening to the steady come-and-go of Andrew’s breath. Andrew is right — he is, indeed, not doing anything, but Kevin liked to hear it while he did nothing. It was a reminder that Andrew existed, and that he was there, and even if there is nothing he can do to save Kevin from his own demons, he still exists to hold Kevin’s face and press his mouth against Kevin’s temple and tell him to stop being idiotic, which is already pretty good on its own. He doesn’t need Andrew to solve everything in his life; he just needs Andrew to be in it every once in a while. 

“Get to bed, Kevin,” is what Andrew says after the minutes of just listening to each other. “I will fight the bad dreams away.”

Despite himself, Kevin’s shoulders shake with laughter. “You’ll punch them out of the way?”

“Yes.”

“All the way from Palmetto?”

He could imagine Andrew blinking slowly, blearily, like a cat in doubt. “I,” Andrew starts, “am strong enough to do it.”

Kevin hums, because he believes it. “Okay, Andrew. I’ll sleep. Goodnight.”

Andrew’s response is an unintelligible mumble that gets cut off as soon as the call is turned off. He loves Andrew, as he always has — this is nothing new to Kevin. 

He turns to the side, letting his phone drop to the mattress. It’s true that Kevin hasn’t been sleeping well: he has to schedule a new session with Perris, maybe, or ask for sleeping pills. He knows there is always something he can do to keep himself from dropping so violently, and that, though dropping is inevitable, it doesn’t have to end with Kevin in a hospital bed. Kevin is not well — hasn’t been since he was seven, maybe even younger —, but he doesn’t want to die anymore. Every year has been a cycle of destroying himself to a point of no repair and patching himself up loosely enough so that he can destroy it again, and Kevin doesn’t want it to be like that anymore. He doesn’t want to die anymore.

Kevin has been crying, has been having trouble sleeping, has been having nightmares and unwanted memories bubbling up at awful times, and this is him being brave. This is him getting through it as well as he knows how to. This is him trying to get better — and no one gets to tell him what that looks like. No one, dead or alive, gets to say Kevin Day is a coward for knowing that, in life, there are things that you just accept if you want to keep on living. 

Enveloping himself in his blanket, Kevin leaves his phone dejected to the bed before making his way to Jean’s room, tapping gently at the door before opening it. Jean’s room was never dark: he had a night light just beside his bed, small but mighty, projecting stars against the walls of Jean’s closet. Kevin had been with him when he bought it — he remembers debating on getting one himself before eventually giving up on it, deeming it too much effort for something as inevitable as nightmares. Now, though, as he stares at it, Kevin regrets the decision. 

Maybe if he had a night light he would be able to have someone else in his bed, because a night light would never be allowed in the Nest, and much less in Riko’s room. Maybe Kevin should stop denying himself things because he didn’t explicitly need them, and start letting himself have them solely because he wants them.

“Jean,” he softly calls from the doorway. 

From his bed, Jean blinks his eyes open one, two, three times before focusing on Kevin. “Kevin?” he replies, the depiction of comfort as he lays under a thick blanket in what Kevin recognizes as the Trojans shirt he uses to sleep more often than not.

Kevin leans his head against the doorway. “Can I sleep with you?” he asks, quietly, a murmur if anything. They didn’t sleep together a lot in the Nest — only when Riko was out, rare moments where he’d disappear for a day or two, enough for Kevin to sink into Jean’s arms without thinking twice of it, drunk on the illusion of freedom.

It’s never romantic, with them. Or maybe it is, but only because friendship to Kevin, who never had the chance to have it, always felt like something out of a romance — incapable of feeling anything in halves as Kevin is, he can’t say that the easy intimacy of friendship isn’t a romance on its own way. There is no language nuanced enough to articulate the complex nature of his relationship with Jean, and that was what got Kevin the most, nowadays: how could he explain a relationship that was physical, but not sexual? More than friendship, but not what he felt for Andrew and Neil? Kevin knew he didn’t want to _be_ with Jean since he was a teenager, but it was harder to sort out the intensity of their kinship without the proper vocabulary.

 _Platonic feelings are hard to describe, sometimes,_ Perris told him when he asked. _They’re supposed to be disqualified to romantic ones. Repurposed romance, people call it. What do you think of Jean?_

What does Kevin think of Jean? — he thinks that no two people could have been happier with the cards that they were dealt. 

He thinks that Jean is the best man to walk this Earth: superhumanly good, fierce like a mother, never letting the wound last longer than the bullet. 

He thinks that, if it weren’t for Jean, Kevin might have ended up dead in a ditch long, long ago. 

He thinks that he is terrified that Jean doesn’t think the same of him, but understands — tries to, at least — that he might never love Kevin the way that Kevin loves him, because Kevin left him, once, to rot in the Nest. 

And he thinks that it isn’t fair that it hurts. It isn’t fair that he wants Jean to think of him as his best friend when all Kevin has done is give him trouble after trouble.

But it doesn’t matter: Jean is too good. He studies Kevin from his bed for a brief moment before gently beckoning a “Come here” that made Kevin feel like a child again; a teenager; terrified that he’d one day be the cause of Jean’s suffering. 

He slips into the bed carefully, slowly, folding himself to Jean’s side like they’re both made of delicate bird bones, this close to snapping. It wasn’t like being in bed with Andrew, because Andrew didn’t know how to be fragile: his arms were infinite where they rested around Kevin and they would bend backwards before they would break. Jean, on the other hand, was delicate — for all of his height and muscle, Kevin couldn’t help but be gentle, because he knew the spots where Jean was his tenderest and he didn’t want to sink his fingers into them if it would hurt.

“I said come here,” Jean murmurs, wrapping his arms around Kevin’s shoulders and bringing him closer like he used to do when they were young. Kevin didn’t want to be held like that again — couldn’t be — because he knew he’d burst into tears if he were. 

And still: he let himself be manhandled into burying his face on Jean’s chest, blinking away heavy tears, trying to breathe him in without making Jean disappear in the process. This — this is why Kevin used to draw him and Jean as half-people when they were young. This is why they can only play piano with four hands, why they always pick the same station when the radio is on, why they are always tied at rock-paper-scissors, why Riko never quite managed to break them. Jean and Kevin were never broken uneven: they always found a way to fit back into each other and be whole again. 

Kevin wants to weep; to laugh; to apologize; to be so many things at once that he will never forgive himself for everything that he did not become. Jean buries a hand in his hair like one does to a child, a baby, a humble dog, and shushes him when his shoulders start to shake due to the strength needed to not break down in tears. He feels Jean’s fingers drag down his scalp gently, soothing touches dividing the strands of Kevin’s hair like water from salt, and it occurs to him that it isn’t Jean whom he is scared that is going to break, but himself — Kevin, who up until now had never thought of himself as someone who is soft, is scared that he is too delicate to be held the way that he wants to be.

Jean doesn’t ask what’s wrong, and Kevin thinks it’s because he knows. They were one soul split into two bodies and Jean knew because he reflected, even ricocheted Kevin’s pain. Kevin never felt the urge to explain himself to Jean. 

When he falls asleep, it’s with tears unshed clogging his throat, but he thinks he might, one day, be able to see love not as a weapon pressed against his throat, but as a warming quilt, pinning him to the bed. 

Kevin doesn’t know if it’s enough. 

The nightlight, still, shines stars against the closet, and maybe it is. Maybe it can be.

  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Kevin:** _Children_

 **Kevin:** _How_

  
  


**Dad is typing…**

**Dad is typing…**

**Dad:** _You are a grown man._

Kevin huffs, leaning against the steering wheel.

**Kevin:** _Not a father. You are. How_

**Dad:** _I know less about young children than you do, Kevin._

He taps his feet impatiently. 

**Kevin:** _I can take care of plants. Anything alike to that?_

**Dad is typing…**

**Dad:** _If it's anything like taking care of you, get ready for drinking yourself into an early grave._

Kevin rolls his eyes.

**Kevin:** _Not funny. I haven't touched alcohol in months. And neither have you, old man._

He can't see his father, surely, but he can tell just by pre-existing knowledge alone that he is scoffing in disdain. 

**Dad:** _Unfortunately. That is the type of thing children put you through._

 **Dad:** _And don't call me that. I miss it when you and Andrew didn't speak._

Kevin vaguely remembers how distressed Wymack had been to notice that he and Andrew were not attached to the hip as they usually were, but decides to not bring it up on the grounds that he's been learning to pick his battles. 

**Kevin:** _No, you don't. It eases your old man heart that Andrew is only one call away when I need him._

**Dad is typing…**

**Dad is typing…**

**Dad is typing…**

**Dad:** 👍

He huffs. 

Logically, Kevin knew how to interact with children — he hadn’t been sheltered enough to forget basic courtesy and decency when it came to them, and though awkward, his interactions with Max had never been negative; quite the opposite, even. Kevin liked interacting with him, liked knowing about his day, liked hearing about Max’s interests and school activities and homework. Kevin _liked_ children.

Which is to say: tonight had gone well. And Kevin doesn’t want to go home, but he will have to, because after three hours of trick and treating there is nothing he can do except lie in bed and try not to think of how lackluster and traumatizing his own childhood had been in comparison to Max’s, who was, arguably, the first child Kevin ever saw have a happy childhood in first person before. It was refreshing, and incredibly saddening — to think he’d been trick or treating for the first time today, at twenty-two, had to be one of the most pathetic details of his life. 

He leans his forehead against the steering wheel. Admittedly, he’s been parked two blocks away from Sidney’s apartment for too long — soon enough it’ll darken completely, and if Kevin stayed any longer he would end up in the morning news with a cross next to his name, his death a courtesy of armed robbery. 

Perris often tells him Kevin is too paranoid. Too morbid. Too well acquainted with the idea of death. 

Kevin thinks he’s doing fine. It’s better to get used to the idea of it sooner than later. 

Anyways: home. He has to go. There is only so much time one can spend in their car all alone without looking creepy, and the bag of soul-eating, unhealthily-bright, tooth-aching candy in his passenger seat might end up in the trash if Kevin lingers next to a recyclable trash disposable for one more minute. What, then? He’d been planning to give it to Andrew as a late birthday gift, to make up for the actual birthday gift Kevin had gotten him despite having been instructed not to. He’s no more of a fan of giving Andrew candy as he is of eating it himself, but after going through the hell that is giving up an addiction as strong as smoking, Kevin thinks Andrew deserves it. 

With a sigh, he turns his car on once more. 

That is, the car stays turned on for a total of five seconds before a loud screeching sound cuts through the air, and Kevin immediately turns it off. 

This is it. Armed robbery. Premeditated murder. Ransom-motivated kidnapping. A sex trafficking ring, even — isn’t that what the news have been annunciating these days? They take you by the car, first, then have you black out. Next time you wake up, you’re already past the border, far, far away from a point of return. 

Kevin presses his eyes closed, rubbing against his temples, and wills his paranoia to _shut up._ It’s just his tire, he convinces himself — it might be slashed, or just plain close to exploding, which can happen, as far as his knowledge in cars goes. He helps no one by staying locked inside with a violent heartbeat and shaky hands, stranded in the middle of nowhere and as vulnerable as he can make himself be. God, does he even know how to change a tire? Of course not. He’d zoned out every single time his father had tried to teach him, and now pays the price.

Tentatively, he pushes his door open, gripping his keys between his knuckles in case of waiting kidnappers. Self defense classes — Kevin attended once and never again, if only because Neil had insisted one too many times that he should at least try them out. Oh, how he misses carrying pepper spray in his bag. 

When he deems his surrounding kidnapper-free, but otherwise still unsafe, Kevin jumps out of his car ready for a fight that doesn’t come. The neighborhood he’s parked in is by far not the face of suburbia, granted, but he can tell that his paranoia is making this much worse than it has to be as soon as he takes a look around, lit-up windows from apartment complexes and light poles staring back at him as if in mockery for his overthinking tendencies. Charleston is, more often than not, a calm city — Kevin can admit to himself that his chance of being kidnapped here is about the same at being kidnapped anywhere else, mafia ties and whatnot.

He takes a turn around his car to check his back tires, the two of them perfectly fine and seemingly working at their best ability. Kevin checks twice more just to be sure before reaching for his front tires and finding the perpetrator for the heart-stopping screech that shortened Kevin’s lifespan by two years.

It’s… A cat. Tucked between the carcass of Kevin’s car and the top of his left front tire, its small body tightly held taut and tense as it stared straight into Kevin’s face, a hiss halfway formed through its mouth. Kevin doesn’t even know if it’s big enough to be considered an adult cat: if anything, it looks like an underfed, unparented stray kitten, appearing to weigh no more than Kevin’s bag of candy. 

He crouches beside his tire carefully, staring at it as if it would start telling him its life story. Given that Kevin is terrified of all animals, no excessions, it feels like a violently stupid idea to reach out for the cat, so he does not. In fact, he just stares in hope that it will get the hint and jump out of his car.

If it’s possible, the cat goes even farther away from his reach, an uneasy stare in its huge green eyes. If Kevin was the type of person who could manage to make jokes about their suffering without bursting into tears at the prospect of being laughed at for showing vulnerability, he’d probably say that he sees the resemblance. 

Gently, he holds his hand out in front of its nose, willing the cat to sniff it. Kevin doesn’t know a thing about cats, barely can say that he saw one before in real life, but it seems to be relatively enough for it to nose against his knuckles carefully, suspiciously. It doesn’t look grown: even with his foul knowledge of cat anatomy, he can admit that it’s unlikely that an adult cat had a body so small. A stray kitten, then; probably seeking shelter and warmth in car engines as the year comes to its chilly end.

Kevin manages to lure the kitten out of its hiding spot a few minutes after, but maybe it’s for the worst — the kitten latches onto the front of his shirt almost immediately, and he has no choice but to hold it in his hands as it tries to claw its way up to his face, so small and light Kevin can positively say that he’s held Exy balls heavier than it. It’s pretty, he thinks: a mess of white, black and orange spots, its fur thick and short, dirty by the engines but not so much so that it stains on his sweatshirt. 

He wants to say that it’s a well thought out decision when he gets back inside his car with the kitten still clinging to his sweatshirt, but Kevin doesn’t like lying. He calls such a shot due to a mix of desperation — the kitten doesn’t seem to plan to let go of him any soon, and hisses when Kevin tries to place it somewhere else — and lack of time to call a better one: night falls over the city and, everything aside, Kevin does not plan on being stranded in an empty neighborhood this late.

The cherry on top is that Kevin is a bad person, but he is not enough of one to let a kitten this small roam around the streets alone, and even less so does he want it to tuck itself in someone else’s tires when all it takes is one turn of a key to injure or kill it if the driver is unaware. It’s an easy decision, really: his guilt of leaving it alone and having almost ran it over eases the edges of his worry that this is a bad idea. Easy. Truly that simple.

Except that he is anxiously biting at the inside of his cheek the entire way back to his apartment, the kitten clinging to his lower abdomen as Kevin tries to convince himself that there is no way bringing a cat unpromptedly is enough for Jean to be furious at him. He’s only seen Jean look genuinely angry a handful of times before, and even less were the times such anger was pointed at him, though it doesn’t seem to make the feeling any easier to deal with when Kevin knows that this would’ve gotten him thoroughly punished in the Nest. A _kitten_ — God, Tetsuji would’ve lost it. The closest Kevin ever got to bringing a pet to the Nest was hiding a slug in a jar during his earlier years, and it died even before Riko could find out about it. 

It’s okay, though. He’s not in the Nest anymore; hasn’t been in years. The Nest has been permanently shut down — Tetsuji fled the country after Riko’s death, to never be heard of again. Kevin _knows_ this. He _knows_ he can’t continue to abide by a dead man’s laws, and yet it doesn’t make it any easier to remember that the threat of a cane and Riko’s sharp knives are long past him now, buried with the awful memories of the Nest and everything it represented. Kevin has been getting better; has been getting worse; and he still can’t quite wash out Riko’s fingertips from his skin. 

Kevin manages to unpeel the kitten from his sweatshirt with only minimal biting and hissing, holding its small body with one hand as he fumbles with his keys and candy bag in the other. It’s the longest elevator ride of his life, and simultaneously the shortest — it’s almost funny how time seems warped when you don’t want it to pass. 

Jean is sitting by the couch when Kevin arrives, a blanket halfway through his frame as he watches what Kevin thinks is a movie they’ve seen a thousand times before, about a painter so old and so famous even Kevin has the decency to know one thing or two about him. His head turns to the door lazily when he hears the door click open, and he greets Kevin with a half-smile. “Hey, how was the trick or treating?”

He freezes by the doorway, a reaction he can admit was way too dramatic for such a situation. Jean’s smile falls. “Kevin?”

Wordlessly, Kevin holds the kitten to Jean’s line of sight, lips pressed together and grim like a ghost. Jean’s eyebrows shoot up before he slowly reaches for the remote to pause the movie, now fully turning to see Kevin standing in the doorway like an idiot. “Why do you have a cat?” he asks, but then adds: “And why are you standing there? Close the door. It’s cold.”

“It was,” Kevin starts, doing as he’s told, “in the car. Sleeping on the front tire.” He puts down his bag of candy on the dinner table, kicking off his shoes by routine, the kitten still clinging to his sleeve. “I know it’s— Well, I know I haven’t told you about this, and I’m sorry, but it’s cold, and someone else could hurt it, and I couldn’t just— I couldn’t just _leave it_ there, because imagine what would happen. Someone would run it over. We can find it a new home if you don’t want it in the apartment but at least for tonight,” he clears his throat, “I think it should stay with us.”

Jean blinks at him blearily. “For how long have you been planning that speech?”

Kevin slowly rubs at the nape of his neck in embarrassment. “The entire ride here.”

“Kevin,” Jean replies, almost-laugh to his tone, “it’s just a kitten. You’re acting as if you got us a third roommate without my knowledge.”

He purses his lips. “It’s a serious decision.”

“It’s just a kitten,” he insists on the same tone, shaking his head ever so slightly. Jean beckons for him to come closer with a motion of his hand, demanding, “Bring it here. I want to see.”

Kevin carefully does so, folding his arm to his chest so the kitten can hide its face on the crook of his elbow. He sits next to Jean so gingerly it almost takes him an entire lifetime to do it, avoiding brusque movements. Jean peeks over his shoulder curiously, staring at the ball of fur, and hums, “I see the resemblance.”

“It’s,” Kevin stammers, frowning, “I think it’s a kitten. Maybe a stray that got lost from its mother.” Tentatively, he brings his free hand to the kitten’s head, delicately caressing its fur. “I don’t know anything about cats,” he confesses.

Jean brings his hand to brush against the kitten’s back. “We had one in Marseilles,” he slowly drags out, “an orange one. Rescued stray. They’re not that hard to take care of.”

“Can we even—” he starts, “can we even _have_ a pet?”

“I don’t see why we can’t.”

“I mean,” Kevin hesitates, “we were never… Allowed.”

“In the Nest,” Jean corrects him, leaning closer to pet under the kitten’s chin. It doesn’t seem to be too bothered by the affection, but Kevin reckons it might be scared. “We’re far away from the Nest now. Two states away, to be more precise.”

Kevin huffs. “You know what I mean.”

“I do,” he hums, “and I don’t think it’s enough of a reason to not have a cat.”

Again, Kevin hesitates. “How would we even take care of it? We have away games to attend.”

Jean tips his head to the side in thought. “I’m sure Mrs. Luna wouldn’t mind watching a cat for us when we have to travel, Kevin. She keeps offering me her babysitting services for when we go out on dates.” He laughs under his breath. “I’m getting tired of explaining to her that we’re not a couple and that we don’t have children, either.”

Kevin rolls his eyes fondly. “She’ll come around. It makes her feel progressive.”

“As if she needs any more progressiveness in her life,” Jean replies, an amused tilt to his voice. He stares at the kitten attentively, easily endeared by it, and Kevin, for one, can relate. “I want to keep it if you want to keep it. I wouldn’t mind.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” He teasingly taps his knuckles against Kevin’s temple. “I told you already that there is no one to come take you kicking and screaming for not following the rules. He’s _dead,_ Kevin. We saw the casket, remember?”

Kevin does remember. Sometimes he thinks Riko shouldn’t have died the way that he did, and sometimes he wishes he was the one who put that bullet through his head. Perris tells him it takes time to heal from the years of forced codependency, and Kevin believes him — “Yes, I remember.” He traces the edge of the kitten’s ears in thought. “I want to keep it, too.” 

“Then let’s keep it.”

“But, Jean—” he delicately taps the kitten’s nose. “Can we even— Are we even _there_ yet? Can we take care of another, living thing?”

This time, Jean taps Kevin’s cheekbone with his knuckles, a gesture he’s come to know that means _idiot_. “I already take care of you. A cat can’t be that hard. It doesn’t talk back, at least.”

Kevin scrunches up his nose. “Shut up.”

“See? The cat won’t do that.”

“I’ll teach it,” Kevin threatens, “I’ll train it to disobey you in every way possible.”

“Out of pure spite?” Jean asks, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “My, my, you don’t change, do you?”

“Shut _up,_ ” he repeats. Young again; made anew. The years come and come, but Kevin doesn’t grow older half as much as he grows softer. 

Each year a little softer — he thinks it’s better like this. Safer, too. 

And it’s easy: they look up how to take care of kittens on the internet and start piling up links of what to buy on their history searches, two children whose lives had been interrupted too soon. Kevin props up a mock-bed for her with a rolled up comforter in his bedroom, placing it just beside his pillow, but it doesn’t quite work as expected — as soon as the lights are off and he slides into his bed, the kitten immediately retreats from her improvised bed to sit on top of Kevin’s chest, chasing for warmth. Hers was a reassuring weight to sleep under, and he found himself not caring for it as he blindly reached for his phone to check his texts one last time before bed. 

Kevin squints at the screen, his chin brushing the kitten’s fur.

**Neil:** _Andrew wants to ship me off to you this weekend. I think he’s happy to finally have someone to send me off to when he doesn’t want to deal with me._

 **Neil:** _Not that it matters, anyway, because he’ll have to deal with me until the day I die, but I won’t pass up on an opportunity to see you if you say yes._

He rolls his eyes. From his chest, the kitten quietly nuzzles his sweatshirt, and Kevin absentmindedly brings a hand to caress her head, typing his reply one-handed.

**Kevin:** _As if. Andrew is incapable of getting tired of you._

 **Kevin:** _And so I’ve heard. I said you could come._

**Kevin is typing…**

**Kevin is typing…**

**Kevin is typing…**

**Kevin:** _Are you perhaps allergic to any type of fur?_

Neil’s reply is not immediate, but quick enough.

**Neil is typing…**

**Neil:** _No? Why?_

 **Neil:** _Not that I know._

**Kevin:** _Can I call you?_

_This_ reply is immediate. 

**Neil:** _Yes, wait a second. Andrew’s being nosy._

Kevin, in the safety of his own bedroom, smiles. He stops when he notices it. 

It’s Neil who calls him first, but Kevin has to wait for a few moments of off-line bantering until Neil greets him hello, his very tone telling Kevin that he is smiling that smile of his, fond and annoyed at the same time. Kevin bites his tongue hard. 

“Hey,” he replies, gently petting the kitten’s head. “I got a cat.”

The voice that follows is not Neil’s, but Robin’s. “You _what?_ ” she asks, her voice betraying her excitement. “ _Kevin._ ”

“Excuse me,” Kevin hears Neil’s voice cut through the off-line bickering, “this is a private call. Get out, you two. I said you _two._ Andrew, I said you _two._ ”

Kevin blows air through his nose to keep himself from laughing. “Am I on speaker?” he wondered aloud.

“No,” Andrew answers, which lets Kevin know that he is. 

“You’ve heard the man,” Kevin hums, “it’s a private call. Only fair.”

Andrew scoffs from the other side of the line. “Tomorrow you will tell me the same things you will tell him today.”

“Exactly. Not today. I’m sure you can wait; my life isn’t that eventful.”

Neil makes a sound alike to a victorious child. Andrew huffs, but doesn’t do much other than mumble his agreement, the sound of his footsteps following right after. 

“College dorms,” Neil says as soon as the line falls silent aside from his amused voice, “never quiet.”

“I remember,” Kevin hums in sympathy. He pets under the kitten’s chin, watching her cuddle up against his hand. “I was going to tell you that I got a cat. You’re going to meet her when you drive to see me.”

There is a surprised pause from Neil’s line. “I thought you were scared of animals.”

“I am. But she’s barely bigger than my hand.”

“Well,” Neil points out, “you do have big hands.”

Kevin rolls his eyes. “She’s a small cat. A kitten. I found her hiding in my front tire.” He pauses for a moment, not doing much aside from staring at the kitten. “It’s… Weird. To be able to just do things. I keep thinking about what would’ve happened if I brought a kitten to the Nest.”

Neil hums. “Nothing good.”

“Yes,” he agrees, “nothing good.”

“So not worth thinking much of,” Neil completes. “That’s a very big what-if when the Nest doesn’t even exist anymore.”

“I know,” Kevin answers, his voice falling quiet; soft. “Do you like cats?”

“Do you?”

“I like her.”

Neil snorts. “You’re already enamored. I don’t know why I expected any different.”

“You didn’t answer me.”

A brief hesitation. “I don’t know. I never had a pet before. I suppose cats are nice.”

“I think you’ll like her,” Kevin informs him. 

“Why is that?”

“Because I like her,” he replies, “and you like me. So you’ll like her.”

“You’re getting insufferable, did you know that?” Neil petulantly points out, though there is a hint of a chuckle in his voice. The line falls quiet; silent; and his tone becomes softer: “I’m looking forward to meeting her. And seeing you.”

Kevin adjusts himself to lay on his side, the kitten lying in front of him with her face tucked in the space between Kevin’s chest and the mattress. “Win tomorrow’s game and we’ll have something to celebrate all weekend.”

Neil huffs from the other side of the line. “Isn’t my presence enough to be celebrated on its own?”

“Win it and see how celebrated it can be.”

He can _see_ Neil rolling his eyes even without seeing him. “You’re awful. This was supposed to be a short call.”

“End it, then,” Kevin softly answers. “Rest up for your game. I don’t want to take up too much of your time.”

“Liar. You love taking up too much of my time.”

“Yes, but you should rest up regardless.”

Neil’s voice becomes quieter. “I will,” he promises. “Are you still having trouble sleeping?”

Kevin hums. “Yes. But I got a night light for my bedroom.” He considers his next words carefully before clarifying, “I got it so you can sleep with me. If you want to.”

“Like, in your room?”

“Where else?”

A pause. “You having me at your apartment is more than enough, Kevin. I can’t— take this from you.”

“You’re not taking,” Kevin points out, “I am willingly giving it to you. It’s just sleeping.”

“I know what went down at bedtime in the Nest, Kevin. I would understand it if you never wanted to sleep with another human being again.” 

A brief shiver goes through Kevin’s shoulders, his usual reaction to the memories of sharing a bedroom with Riko, but he soldiers on: “I want to sleep with you. I trust you. I know you’re not going to do anything.”

It’s convincing both for Neil and himself. “I’m not,” Neil agrees, an implicit promise. “I would never.”

“I know.”

“Good.” There is a muffled sound from his side of the line, what Kevin supposes is Neil shifting around in bed, and then a soft murmur, “You can always trust me. Even if you want to take it back. You can always say yes now and no later.”

“I know, Neil,” Kevin repeats, if only because he doesn’t know how to deal with Neil’s genuine tenderness yet. “I _know._ Rest assured that I do. Now go to sleep.”

“Okay,” Neil complies easily. “Goodnight, Kevin. _Dors bien.”_

“ _Dors bien,_ Neil.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


Kevin doesn’t take it back. 

In fact — in bed, half-asleep and with the cat wrapped around his neck is how Neil finds him in the first place, his arrival coming unannounced at the early Saturday morning just after his game, won by a big margin of points courtesy of Neil’s ever-bettering striking skills. It’s so early Kevin is not even the one who opens the door for him; Jean is, and he briefly wonders how that interaction went down as he watches Neil carefully step into his bedroom, bag slung over his shoulder.

“Neil,” he murmurs, unintelligible even to himself with his mouth pressed to his pillow, “‘s too early.”

He predicts Neil’s footsteps more than he hears them, eyes half-open to monitor as Neil kneels beside the bed to be face to face with Kevin, his hand pairing just over Kevin’s hair. “Can I?” he asks in a quiet voice. 

From its spot on Kevin’s neck, the kitten burrows closer. “Yes,” Kevin replies, the sound of it so muffled he has to repeat it once more after clearing his throat, “Yeah.”

Neil’s hand cards through his hair delicately, slicking it back before tracing the shell of Kevin’s ear so gently it was as if Kevin would break with just the sound of a breath harsher than usual. “Jean let me in,” Neil informs, his voice barely above a whisper, “I knew you’d be sleeping. It’s not that early.”

“ _Too_ early,” Kevin complains, even if he can recognize that he is too fresh out of sleep to make any sense at all. “Always up so early. Sleep sometimes. You and ‘ndrew. Crazy.”

A soft chuckle. “We’re crazy?”

“Yes. Crazy,” he mutters to his pillow, eyes open just enough to more or less catch Neil’s face. “Your game. Congrats. You ‘ere good.” 

“Me?”

“You.”

Neil’s hand returns to the crown of his head, rolling a strand of Kevin’s hair around his finger absentmindedly, soothing enough to make him turn into Neil’s hand more or less. “Wake up, Kevin. It’s almost ten.”

“No.” 

“I came here to see you,” he hums, a half-smile tugging at his lips regardless, “what am I supposed to do until you wake up?”

It’s a fair question, granted, and Kevin huffs. “Fine,” he answers, forcing himself to blink his eyes fully open. It’s hard — sleeping in is so charming on weekends now that Kevin has the chance to do it —, but it’s Neil’s face he sees just after he wakes up, so it can’t be that bad. “Lie with me?”

Neil hesitates. “Wake up first.”

“‘m awake.”

He gently flicks Kevin’s forehead. “Move the cat, then.”

“Hey,” he complains, but does as he’s asked, bringing his hands to delicately unpeel the kitten from around his neck and place her in front of his chest instead. The kitten barely notices, and sleeps through it all. “She wasn’t bothering anyone.”

Neil shrugs off his coat and bag, throwing both to the ground haphazardly, before kneeling beside Kevin on the bed and latching onto his back almost immediately, nuzzling Kevin’s nape. “She,” he answers, “was in my spot.”

“Not your spot,” Kevin disagrees, his voice still fuzzy with unconsciousness, “‘s my neck.”

“Mhm,” Neil hums, wrapping his arms around Kevin’s torso, a warm palm splayed over Kevin’s stomach. 

Sighing in content, Kevin burrows closer, his back glued to Neil’s chest and his shoulder serving as a resting spot for Neil’s chin. “How was your trip?” he mumbles, the closeness doing a better job than any coffee could at waking him up. 

“It was fine,” he softly replies, thumbing against Kevin’s lower stomach without giving it much thought. Kevin brings the kitten closer to his chest, scratching at her head, and his heart is soothed. “Andrew drove me. We’ll have to use your car if you want to go out this weekend.”

Kevin huffs. “And he didn’t come to see me?”

Neil teasingly pinches at Kevin’s waist. “I think he’s scared he doesn’t give us enough time alone,” he murmurs as if telling a big secret, tone mischievous. “He did send his well wishes, though.”

“He did?”

“No, he told me ‘One piece, Abram’ and drove away.”

Kevin laughs; a soft, shy sound. “As if I’m not in the best of hands,” he teases, stressing his point by squeezing Neil’s hand over his stomach. 

“As _if_ ,” Neil laughs, too, breezy and brief. Kevin likes his laugh, if only because it’s so clumsy — short, gentle sounds, easy to miss in their briefness. Neil drops a kiss against the side of Kevin’s neck, then another, then another; a small diaspora of them peppered over his skin. “I haven’t had breakfast yet,” he confesses lowly, to the junction of Kevin’s neck and shoulder.

“I bought blood oranges yesterday,” Kevin hums, tracing Neil’s palm where it rests over his stomach, “since you were coming.”

Neil noses against the side of his face, lazily pressing his lips to Kevin’s jawline. “Are they in season?”

“Not yet,” he replies. It’s such a ridiculously domestic conversation to have Kevin is almost happy he isn’t able to see Neil’s face — they’re not even a _couple,_ for God’s sake. “I can afford expensive, off season fruit, though.”

“Stop talking,” Neil warns, “before I kiss you.”

“Oranges turn you on?”

He feels against his skin more than hears the puff of Neil’s breath. “You got them for me.”

“Well,” Kevin points out matter-of-factly, “I used to do our groceries. I know what you like.”

“I told you I’m going to kiss you if you don’t shut up.”

“I—” Kevin opens his mouth to complain, but doesn’t finish his sentence. Instead, he gathers the kitten on his arms and turns around in Neil’s hold, placing her between both their chests and propping himself up on the same pillow as Neil. “Yes.”

Neil rolls his eyes. “I can’t believe you want me to kiss you with the cat on the bed.”

He cocks his head to the side. “It’s a cat, Neil, not a cockroach.” Kevin pets under her chin absentmindedly. “And she’s just a kitten.”

“Shut up,” he bites back, knocking his nose against Kevin’s. “Shut _up._ I’ll kiss you.”

“I told you yes already, what are you waiting for?”

Neil rests their foreheads together, mouths a breath from touching. “Restraint is a virtue, I reckon.”

Kevin can’t help but let out a startled laugh. “Are you virtuous now?” he asks, only half breathless because of their close proximity. 

“No,” Neil smiles, and finally pushes their mouths together. 

His hands fly to Neil’s face, cupping his cheeks and keeping him close, earning himself an approving hum from the aforementioned. Kevin likes this so much it’s ridiculous — for a man who was set on being alone at the beginning of the semester, and is still quite unsure of whether he wants to belong to anyone at all, Neil’s mouth can be enough of an argument to keep him from fully falling prey to his solitude. It makes Kevin question everything that he believes.

They part with a soft sound, Neil’s teeth reluctantly letting go of Kevin’s lower lip. “I’ve been thinking of this all week,” Neil confesses quietly, hands sliding down Kevin’s torso. “All the time. I can’t pay attention to class. You’ll make me fail college.”

Kevin shrugs. “You don’t need a degree to be a professional player.”

“Not the point.”

“I told you that I’m not a hallucination,” he hums, dragging his thumb up and down Neil’s cheekbone. “Not a daydream, either. I exist.”

“ _That’s_ my problem,” Neil stresses, “you exist but not with me.”

Kevin presses another kiss to his mouth to shut him up. “Enough complaining.”

“Oh, you’re such an hypocr—” 

Another kiss. 

“Kevin—”

Another.

“ _Fine,”_ he gives up, falling quiet and allowing Kevin to press kiss after kiss to every bit of his mouth he could find, soon after moving to Neil’s entire face. He tips Neil’s chin back with his thumb to kiss over his eyebrows and eyelids, barely-there presses of his mouth, and Neil’s hands tighten on his sides like he’s scared Kevin will disappear if they don’t. “I can’t believe I let you kiss me with morning breath.”

“It’s because I’m a good kisser.”

Neil drags his hands down Kevin’s back. “Maybe so.”

Kevin chuckles. “Yes, I am. You and Andrew are always immediately distracted.”

“As much as I’d love to lie here and listen to how Andrew reacts to you — because trust me, I’m dying to know and have played it out in my head many times —, now I’m thinking of the oranges.”

For good measure, Kevin ignores every part of Neil’s reply but the last one before pushing himself up and out of the bed, careful to not wake up the still-sleeping kitten that had been between them seconds ago. “Come on,” he calls, stretching out his muscles and waiting for Neil to slide out of bed. “Breakfast.”

“Did you hear what I said? I said—”

“ _Y_ _es._ Breakfast now.”

With a huff of laughter, Neil pushes himself out of bed, too. After a brief stop to the bathroom for Kevin to brush his teeth and two mint-tasting kisses later, they make their way to the kitchen, where Jean is already sat with his own breakfast and his nose buried in one of the books Kevin got for him from the local library.

When he sees them coming in, he lowers the book just enough to greet, “Good morning.”

Kevin brushes his hand over Jean’s shoulder as he passes him by, Neil choosing to sit across from him at their dinner table. “Good morning. Kitten went to bed at four last night,” Kevin informs him as he pushes the fridge’s door open, grabbing the bag of blood oranges he’d promised Neil.

Jean snorts lightly. “I passed out after one. I didn’t hear her yell.”

“Lucky you,” Kevin replies, sliding into the seat between Neil and Jean and slicing an orange into two crescents, keeping one to himself and offering the other to Neil. “She yells at night and sleeps the entire day. We’re raising a lowlife.”

“How did you even get her, anyways?” Neil asks, unpeeling his half of the orange absentmindedly. “I didn’t take either of you as the type to raise pets.”

“Kevin brought her home,” Jean recalls, lifting a mug of coffee to his lips. Kevin knows he doesn’t like Andrew — and can’t quite find it in himself to berate him for it —, but Jean doesn’t seem to mind Neil all that much; if anything, they could almost be friends. “He had a whole speech ready as to why I should let her stay. Plead his case very well.”

Neil huffs a laugh. “He is so good at arguing when he wants something.”

“Aren’t we all?” Kevin wonders aloud, slicing the wedge of his orange in half and popping it on his mouth. “She’d die if I let her there. What then?”

“So soft-hearted,” Neil points out teasingly.

“Even you would have taken her. Don’t lie.”

Tapping his fingers against the edge of his orange in thought, Neil eventually concedes, “You can’t raise pets in Fox Tower, but yes.”

“How come you are allowed there, then?” Jean asks nonchalantly, so quick it startled Kevin into laughter.

Neil throws an orange peel in Jean’s direction, hitting his book straight on the cover. “I’ll spit on all your food.”

“Which is also Kevin’s food.”

Before Neil can say something inappropriate in regards to Kevin, himself and his own spit, Kevin cuts off their argument by picking up the fallen orange peel and glaring in Neil’s direction, reprimanding, “Don’t play with food.”

“You,” Neil points in his direction, “don’t tell me what to do.”

“He tells everyone what to do,” Jean hums from behind his book, “it’s a personality trait.”

“It’s too early in the morning to discuss my personality,” Kevin replies, chewing on his orange. “Since when are you friends?”

“We are not,” Jean calmly points out. 

“We are not,” Neil agrees.

Ominous, Kevin supposes, but such is life when almost everyone in your social circle is a mafia reject. He lets it slide. River would find this interaction funny.

They eat breakfast in comfortable silence, and Kevin’s orange — that is, his and Neil’s, the one which they share and, later on, kiss from mouth to mouth after Jean is long gone — makes him so happy, for some reason. An out-of-season fruit he just went out and bought, for the sole sake of wanting to and knowing Neil would enjoy having one in the morning; easy like that. Kevin is often surprised, nowadays, how life can be easy like that. 

Afterwards, all it takes is a few tugs for Neil to follow Kevin to the living room couch, even going as far as allowing Kevin to drape himself all over him like a blanket, his cheek squished against Neil’s collarbones as he absentmindedly scratches Kevin’s back, ridiculously easy affection neither bat an eyelash at while they argue over what to watch. Kevin wants to watch — unsurprisingly, as he is self-admittedly obsessive — a documentary, and Neil wants to watch anything but, so they compromise on a terrible reality show they would, rather hypocritically, berate Nicky for watching.

Jean offers them a raised eyebrow as he passes them by on his way to the kitchen, but doesn’t say anything, and Kevin knows he finds it funny — he just _knows_ he does, and he doesn’t have it in himself to berate him about it, because Kevin really does enjoy the affection. Andrew was right: touch _is_ , indeed, his thing, and he finds it that Neil’s in specific lights his skin on fire in the most pleasant way possible. Kevin is not above admitting that he absolutely adores the attention, and that Neil’s hands on his hair have him melting like a candle over his chest. 

For lunch, Kevin briefly detangles himself from Neil to assist Jean on cooking, but it doesn’t last near enough: as soon as the lunch table is put out they are once again curled up on the couch, this time with a blanket thrown over them (courtesy of Jean, who is an angel and a dream) and Kevin’s head on Neil’s lap, soothed by the absentminded touches on his hair. They’re halfway done with the first season of said reality show — admittedly bad enough to be good, if only because fights were so common Kevin found himself deeply entertained by the awful group dynamics — by the time it’s late afternoon, intertwining moments of intensive making out between each episode for good measure. Kevin thinks this is the best arrangement of a relationship they could’ve made. 

Andrew calls just when they’re about to start another episode, his version of checking in on them, and Neil doesn’t even bother pushing Kevin off of where he was straddling his lap to pick up the phone, an already amused smile forming on his face as he puts it on speaker. “Andrew,” he greets cheerfully, “you’re on speaker.”

A pause from Andrew’s line. “Abram. Kevin.”

“Hi,” Kevin greets, adjusting himself so that he is lying on top of Neil once more, knees on both sides of his hips. “I don’t have a middle name for you to call me by.”

“No,” Andrew agrees, “you do not. Are you alive still?”

Neil huffs, tangling his hand in Kevin’s hair as he’s done a thousand times before by now. Kevin’s hair is at its peak of messiness due to Neil’s fingers, but it doesn’t quite matter. “I didn’t come all the way here to commit murder, Andrew.”

“Not murder,” Kevin agrees, voice muffled by Neil’s hoodie. “I’m alive. Are you?”

“Don’t make stupid questions.”

He laughs into Neil’s chest. “I’m just repeating what you asked.”

“Such courtesy,” Andrew dryly replies, thoroughly unimpressed. “What are you doing?”

Kevin replies “Watching TV,” at the same time Neil says, “Furiously making out,” and neither of the two is lying.

Somehow Andrew seems to know this, because the huff from his side of the line is definitely amused. His last words before turning off the call are, “I will video call you. Pick up,” and his first words when Neil picks up the video call are, “Aren’t you two cozy,” said so dryly Kevin thought he’d cough around it. 

He’s on the roof, or at least Kevin thinks he is by what the screen is showing — the fast-coming sunset tinges Andrew’s pale hair a pretty shade of orange, hazel eyes shining yellow, and he has the signature lollipop between his lips. It’ll still rot his teeth just like the cigarettes, if not even faster, but Kevin doesn’t comment on it; picking his battles and whatnot. All he does is crack one eye open at the camera, face still half-buried in Neil’s hoodie and instantly mellowed out by the hand that is still on his hair.

“He clings,” Neil limits himself to agreeing, drawing random patterns on Kevin’s scalp he suspects might be fox paws. “How are you holding up without me?”

Andrew stares at the camera, unmoved. “Freedom, at last, after years without it.”

“I doubt it. You miss me most ardently.”

“Do you hear yourself when you talk?”

“Yes,” Neil offers Andrew a toothy grin, “and I think I’m right.”

“I think he’s right, too,” Kevin softly agrees.

“Is this you unionizing?” Andrew asks, toneless. 

Neil’s nails scratch against Kevin’s scalp in a languid flow, from the back of his head to the crown, making Kevin burrow deeper into his chest. “It’s him seeing an obvious truth,” Neil hums. “What did you do today?”

Andrew rolls his eyes, but does not deny it. “Read. Sleep. Watch TV. The usual.”

“Did you have fun?” is Kevin’s feeble attempt at being part of the conversation, too distracted by Neil’s hand on his hair and the soothing feeling of it to add anything meaningful.

“Am I a five year old?” Andrew wonders aloud. “There is no reason for you to ask me that question.”

Kevin lets out a harsh breath that is most definitely a laugh, though he smothers it against Neil’s chest. “I am waiting for the day you will say yes,” he confesses.

“l will never.” 

"He'll never."

Kevin shakes his head. “You two are awful.”

“You say that while you are using him as a mattress,” Andrew clinically points out, a hint of amusement burning behind his eyes and shifting the apathy ever so slightly. “Is lying contagious?”

“No,” Kevin promises, “the fact that you are awful does not mean that he is not a good mattress.”

“What he said,” Neil agrees, playfully knocking his nose against Kevin’s temple. “Wish you were here yet, Andrew?”

Andrew’s face falls blank; tell-tale of a lie. “No.”

Neil’s smile is victorious. “Is that so—”

“Goodbye, Abram,” Andrew cuts him off easily. “Goodbye, Kevin. Do not contact me again.” Then he hangs up. 

Neil lets the phone fall back with a laugh, wrapping his arms around Kevin’s neck and holding him to his chest. “He is so awful. _He_ was the one who called first. The audacity.”

Kevin smiles into his chest. “The audacity,” he echoes in agreement, though he supposes he would agree to anything Neil said if he was holding him like this, firm and protective like nothing in the world could touch even a strand of Kevin's hair. "We should," Kevin draws out, "go out for dinner."

"Hm," Neil hums in consideration, squeezing his arms around Kevin's neck. "You'll drive?"

"No, we'll take a cab."

"Why?" he tugs on Kevin's hair teasingly. "You have a car."

"Jean and I have a car," he murmurs his explanation, "and he'll need it tonight. I don't like driving, either way."

Neil tugs on his hair a bit harsher, making Kevin look up to him. "Why not?" 

"Annoying," Kevin huffs. "Inconvenient. I only drive if I absolutely have to."

"And Kevin Day doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do."

Kevin taps his fingers over Neil's chest, where his heart should be. "Not anymore," he limits himself to agreeing, which is a fairly genuine truth — Kevin is never forced to do anything anymore, except maybe train less, which he reckons might be for the Stingrays' sake as much as his own. 

Neil hums, resuming the tugging and once more carding his hand through Kevin's hair, now brushing the black strands with his fingers. "Brush your hair before we go. It's messy."

"And whose fault is that?" Kevin asks.

"You like it," Neil points out like it's an obvious truth. "I know the secret to you now. You shut up with affection."

"Wanted affection," he corrects Neil. "If it's unwanted it just makes me stressed."

His hands abruptly still on Kevin's hair, the playful blue turning sober as a pensive look washes over it. Kevin curiously rests his chin over Neil's chest to stare, a question in his face. "I," Neil starts, his tone definite, "will never wrestle the yes out of you. I'll never take anything that's not freely given." He traces Kevin's nose with the tip of his finger, a ghost touch. "Andrew even less. Kevin, do you understand?"

Kevin blinks. "I do."

"I'm serious," he continues, falling quiet as he tucks a strand of Kevin's hair behind his ear. "You don't owe me anything. I don't want you to ever do something just because I want it a lot. Or because Andrew wants it a lot. A no is enough to end any situation you don't want to be in."

"Why are you telling me this out of nowhere?" Kevin softly asks.

Neil thumbs under his eyes delicately. "Because I worry you don't know. I mean—" he snorts lightly. "I know you can and will complain about anything you don't like, but I haven't seen you say no, yet. And sometimes it's like you just let me do anything. I don't want you to think that you're obligated to give into what I want." Neil gently taps the tip of his nose with his thumb. "Everything I say applies to Andrew, too. He's gruff but he knows that it's a delicate thing. He'd never want you to give into his every wish just because it's him."

Kevin mindlessly presses his lips to Neil's knuckles. "I don't let you do _anything._ I just know that you won't use the trust against me. But I've told Andrew no before, and I will tell you no if I want to."

"Good. I never thought I'd say this, but be as unpleasant and insistent as you want."

He huffs a laugh against Neil's knuckles. "I will take onto that piece of advice."

Neil caresses the small space just where Kevin's eye ends. "I wouldn't expect anything else."

And Kevin knows that he worries — the same way he knows that Andrew worries, too, and that he, himself, does. Their particular cocktail of issues isn't all that harmonious of a combination, and Kevin has his fair share of paranoias to get over if he wants to make this a permanent in his life. Trust can be a double-edged sword more often than not: just because Kevin finds it easier to offer physical vulnerability, it does not mean he is as willing to compromise himself emotionally. It's a dangerous combination, and probably the reason why they are not in a relationship in the first place.

But he won't — can't, shouldn't — apologize for it. After so much damage, enough that sometimes Kevin still finds more of it repressed under bigger feelings, he is not crazy about jumping into the relationship of two men with self-admitted ownership issues and fickle interests, on top of abrasive reactions to when things go out of their way. Love is not the problem, because Kevin knows he wants them, but if there is one thing life has been teaching him time and again, it is that loving something doesn't exempt it from harming you. In fact, it's quite the opposite: it's almost always a guarantee. 

Kevin also knows that they won't wait forever, and that, their patience short as it is, they will get tired of it soon enough. He's not stupid — he knows they won't go out of their way to wait for him. They're not built to last; Kevin is not supposed to be here to stay. Like a bad dog, they'll give up on trying to shape him into what they want and give him up. There is no use in pretending otherwise as there is no use in suffering over it. Kevin is not made for love; not made to crouch and beg. 

It will break his heart — it always does —, but he will survive. For once, Andrew and Neil are not all that he has. For once, being alone does not equate to death. 

Still, Kevin buries his face into Neil's chest once more, if only because looking at him is a painful reminder that he will not go out of his way to make Kevin stay; because he is as willing to let Kevin go as he is willing to let anything else go; because he'll give up on him soon enough, and every memory will eat Kevin alive. Because Kevin is convenient, perhaps even wanted, but not needed.

 _Doesn't matter,_ he convinces himself. _You're better on your own. By yourself. Loving other people hasn't served you well thus far._

Hurt, doesn't hurt, whatever: any sympathy Kevin has left, both for himself and others, is slowly dying. Finally, he can say he understands why Andrew withdrew so violently — he had nowhere else to go. No one would love him in a way he could enjoy and unwanted he was free. 

He brews on such thoughts for a while before allowing them to go away, a method Perris taught him. Kevin doesn't know how to let go yet, but he wants to — little by little, he wants to destroy the obsessive machinery inside of him that he keeps him wallowing in misery, unable to do anything but sit and take the blow; a conformed victim. He wants to learn how to not be a prey animal now that the worst is behind him, no target on his back worth hitting, and that includes not willingly indulging in no good thoughts that will only serve to hurt him. Kevin _has_ been learning, and the balance between self-preservation and violent anxiety in his mind is not as brutal as it once had been.

Neil goes to shower first so they can leave for the restaurant — a lovely sushi place the team went to, once, to celebrate a really good practice —, leaving Kevin to do what he does when he's bored, which is awkwardly standing in Jean's room until he finds something else to do. The Jean in question is still very much in bed despite having to go out in a few minutes, fully dressed but otherwise unhurried, and all he does is look up from his phone lazily when Kevin stands there, arms crossed.

"How's that going for you?" Jean hums, turning his stare back to his phone screen after motioning with his head towards the bathroom, where Neil was showering.

Kevin sits at the edge of his bed. "Good."

"Just good?"

"Why are you interested in my love life, pray tell?"

Jean rolls his eyes, kicking at Kevin's lower back weakly with socked feet. "I need to know if I have to get home late today."

"As if." Kevin scrunches up his nose. "I barely have the mind to let him _sleep_ in my bedroom."

"Hm," he hums, lifting his gaze to Kevin. "What does he think about that?"

Kevin shakes his head softly. "He needs encouraging every step of the way, but he understands. He doesn't want to overstep."

Jean studies him for a second. "And the other one?"

"The way you refuse to say Andrew's name makes me think you believe he'll appear out of thin air at the mention."

He just blinks in Kevin's direction, waiting for an answer. Kevin rolls his eyes. "He's not evil, you know. I'm not being held at gunpoint when I kiss him."

"Not what I asked."

Kevin rolls his eyes again. "He's even more thorough with not overstepping than Neil."

Jean nods, going back to his phone. "Bare minimum. But good. Close the door when you leave."

He stays there for a few more minutes, though, if only because Jean's presence is soothing even when he is not doing anything or talking to Kevin at all. Kevin leaves when Neil calls to say that he's done with his shower, closing the door behind him as he does so, and soon enough they are both huddled at the backseat of an old looking man's car, Kevin in one of his long coats and Neil in a borrowed turtleneck. Perhaps out of obligation or nature, Kevin folds the too-long sleeves gently as the driver pulls off into the driveway, leaving enough room for Neil to push them down and cover the scars on his hands if he wants to. 

Kevin's learned how to be more or less careful in public, but most cabs have a partition between the driver and the backseat now, probably to prevent awkward encounters or downright dangerous ones, and it's not like the man will see it when Neil digs his chin on Kevin's shoulder and watches as he folds the sleeves, a look in his eyes Kevin can't decipher for the life of him. 

"So nice to me," Neil murmurs.

He doesn't know what to say to that, so he doesn't say anything at all. Kevin finishes folding the sleeves by cuffing them in place, and rests his hand over Neil's tentatively, staring out the window. They're glued together the entire ride, and he finds that detangling himself from Neil afterwards is a rather pitiful experience, though the premise of dinner is enough to balm the disappointment. 

They choose a secluded table on the second level of the restaurant, taking stairs to an almost-empty room with a handful of unused tables and a big family having dinner near the window, talking blissfully and so loud Kevin doubts they'll even realize they are there at all. 

When the two of them settle on a table, Neil across from him with the menu covering half of his face, the man prompts with a smile, "Hi."

"Hello."

"You," Neil drags out pompously, "are taking me out on a date."

"Am I?" he wonders aloud, briefly turning his eyes to his own menu before finding Neil's gaze again. "I was under the impression that having your tongue down my throat was just what platonic friends did."

"An Exy skill I surely look out for is tongue." 

"Good to know I passed the test," Kevin hums absently.

The other man is quiet for a little while, curiously peeking at Kevin over the menu, and asks, "Have you ever been on a date before?"

Kevin stares at him. "Does Andrew not take you out on dates?"

"Do you hear yourself when you speak?"

He bites back a laugh. Neil rolls his eyes before continuing, "I don't think I ever wanted to go on a date, and Andrew's idea of one is making out and having ice cream when no one else is in the dorm. I suppose I don't know what to do. Should I hold your hand, or...?"

"If you have the nerve," Kevin teases, shaking his head ever so slightly. "There's no etiquette. We've eaten out together a hundred times before."

Neil considers that for a moment before eventually agreeing, "Fair enough." Hesitantly, he tries his hand at the chopsticks sitting pretty on their table, propped up in graceful stands. It's clumsy, but Kevin knows how smart Neil is — there is no need to offer help. "I don't think I've ever had sushi before," Neil absentmindedly comments, trying to click the chopsticks together and failing more or less. 

"You'll like it," Kevin replies. "You've never used chopsticks before?"

He shakes his head. "Never been to a country that used them."

Kevin learned how to use chopsticks in the Nest and does not want to indulge in that story, so he just hums. "Neither have I. The next Olympics are going to be in Thailand, though, or so I've heard."

"That's two years from now, though," Neil points out. "Have you gotten the call yet?"

He huffs. "Too far away for the call yet. I'm not shaking in excitement at the prospect of training in the Nest, also."

"You won't be alone," Neil reassures. "I think they'll recruit Abeles, too. And," he crosses his fingers, "Andrew. I know they'll want him. Fingers crossed that he'll say yes."

"What about you?" Kevin asks. "Andrew won't go without you."

Neil motions dismissively. "I'll be fresh out of college."

"Unlikely, but not impossible."

"Yes," he nods, "thanks to Thea, it's not impossible." Then, more quietly: "I do hope the three of us make Court at the same time. It's going to be fun."

Kevin taps his fingers against the flowery tablecloth. "It will," he concedes, at last. "Jeremy, too, is a given. Imagine _us_ playing with _him_ — God. We'd crush the other countries."

Neil perks up at the hypothetical. "Imagine. Kevin, _imagine._ Making it to Court, together, with the best players in the country. Getting to travel the world." He shakes his head, his entire face gentling. "Sometimes I can't wrap my head around it. You have no idea how bad I want this."

He laughs. "So many plans, already."

"Of course," comes Neil's fierce reply, "you were always part of my future. You know this." His voice falls soft, quiet. "You have no idea how bad I want _you._ "

And isn't it funny: even the way Neil clicks his chopsticks clumsily knocks Kevin the fuck out, but the panic that rushes over him is a brutal contender to the butterflies in his stomach. The last person Kevin made plans for the future with was Riko, and look at where that got them — how could he promise Neil anything when he knows all of the ways this could go wrong, and all of the ways Neil could use this against him? How— How could Kevin _compromise himself_ — How can he trust Neil to _love_ him, when loving is so intertwined to owning in Kevin's mind, still?

His thoughts must have shown on his face, though, because Neil gently interlaces their fingers together, a hesitant look in his eyes Kevin wants to wipe away. "It's okay if you can't answer. It's just important to me that you know."

"It's," Kevin's voice comes out strained — he barely even knows what he's saying, "a leap of trust."

 _Loving you is,_ he doesn't have to specify. Neil's eyebrow quirks. "Come on and jump, then. I dare you to," he smiles in challenge, then amends: "I'll catch you."

Kevin exhales harshly; almost clumsily, too much air at once. "You dare me to do what?" he asks, focusing on the least important part of Neil's answer.

"To fall in love with me," Neil easily replies. "I dare you."

"That's—" _an easy dare._ "How come are you asking me this?"

"It's only fair." His grin is toothy; mirthful. "There's got to be a few butterflies somewhere, I'm sure. I know it's not because of my _face,_ but come on, Kevin — aren't we two peas in a pod? Peanut butter and jelly? Never one without the other?" Neil leans closer and on his elbows, not touching Kevin anywhere aside from his hand; keeping his fair distance as he promised he would. "Don't we have this crazy chemistry between us?"

Kevin blinks at him, unimpressed. He does not want to disagree — Kevin doesn't like lying, even less so to Neil —, but he doesn't know what he'd be agreeing to if he didn't. At last, he decides to evade the question entirely by observing, "We argue all the time, Neil."

Neil shrugs. "I don't stop wanting you when you're yelling at me, I came to realize."

"Well," he concedes slowly, falling back into blank honesty once more, "it is true that your temper can be sexy."

That freezes the smile off Neil's face, his movements stuttering, and that is how Kevin knows he's won. He hides his own smile behind the menu. 

"What?" Neil asks, dumbfounded.

"What?" Kevin echoes. "For a man your size, you sure do make up in passion."

Neil blinks, slowly putting down, "And you like it."

"And I like it."

He shakes his head. "I thought I knew what to expect because of Andrew, but you're an entirely different breed."

"Me and Andrew are nothing alike," Kevin corrects him in one breath. "You were foolish to think otherwise."

Neil is quiet for a moment. "I do wonder what that's like. You and Andrew. I can see how it works, but—" he motions vaguely. "You two are so different. You're… You. And Andrew is… Andrew." 

Kevin raises an eyebrow. "Andrew is perfectly nice to me."

"Because it's you," he hums, fondness buttering up his words. Kevin thought it took someone good, really good, to feel such fondness over the love someone else gets from the person that they love. "I think no three people could be better together than us."

 _Together._ This time, Kevin doesn't feel the same rush of panic from before, if only because he understands what Neil is trying to say — it's not about a relationship, per se, but the dynamics of them, the way they work. All the giving and taking; all the solved quarrels; all the history they have, good and bad. It makes sense that Andrew and Neil, of all people, are the two who managed to make Kevin question his beliefs.

Kevin softly points out, "You're indulging, Josten."

"I can indulge now, I don't have to go without Andrew," he replies certainly, with a confidence that makes Kevin's heart jump. Then, more tentatively, he adds, "And I don't have to go without you, either."

"No," he agrees. "I'm not going anywhere."

Neil smiles his real, sharp grin, and Kevin has to look away, if only because the sight breaks his heart in the worst way possible: wide open, evenly, pinning it softer than it has ever been.

The night is so good. When they're good, it's _so_ good. They laugh and eat and share a ridiculously sweet virgin cocktail neither were willing to stop drinking, in spite of their own pride. It's easily the best date of Kevin's life, and he doesn't want to think much about that, because he and Neil are not supposed to _work_ — they're supposed to fight, argue, hate each other to their bones instead of playing footsie under the table and making out in a restaurant bathroom. The world has tilted off its axis, surely, or Kevin has: everything is different. Everything changes, in him, each moment he spends with Neil. 

It's not supposed to be this good, but it _is._ Their tension was only so suffocating before because they had nowhere to let it go — because Kevin couldn't grab Neil's face and kiss him to make him shut up, but now he can, and it's so _easy._ It's so easy to just touch Neil to let him know of all the things Kevin can't say out loud; all of the parts of himself he can't compromise. Kevin understands Neil's hands on his body so much better than he understands Neil's words, he keeps walking into the thought that they should've done this years ago.

Kevin likes to think that he is a well-composed, elegant person with a few restraint issues. Neil, as he does, makes him want to beg to differ. 

He barely waits for Neil to climb on the backseat of their cab — partition firmly shut, of course, after they told the driver their destination — before all but climbing on top of him, knees arranged on both sides of Neil's hips and hands grabbing at his shoulders firmly, pinning him down under all of Kevin's muscle. Neil's hands stutter before they find his waist, and when he looks up, he is just breathless enough to murmur, "Jesus Christ. We're in a _taxi._ "

"Tinted windows," Kevin replies in a whisper, crossing his arms behind Neil's neck. "I'm not stupid."

Neil looks up at him suspiciously. He disappears under Kevin, more often than not, but he is not as skinny as he once was — the years of athletics and a now-unrestricted diet have made him not only stronger, but softer too. His cheeks are fuller; his skin has a slight tan; his arms are thicker; his legs hold Kevin's weight with no effort. Neil looks so healthy and _happy_ that Kevin can't help but lean down and kiss him, because he doesn't know what type of rubbish he might say if he doesn't keep his mouth occupied. 

"It _is_ because of your face," he murmurs between kisses, hands flying up to Neil's face. "You're. So. Dumb. You look so good."

He tastes like strawberry juice from their mocktail and smells like he rolled around in Kevin's clothes all day. It's too much and never enough at the same time — he's glad Neil is holding him by his waist so tightly, because Kevin is sure otherwise he'd float away soon, astrally projecting to another universe.

"The fact that," Neil tries to speak, but his lips are obviously occupied at the moment. Eventually, when Kevin has to pull away to breathe, Neil continues: "The fact that I am stupid does not seem to deter you any."

"Stupid men," he pants, resting his forehead against Neil's, "the only worth knowing."

Neil digs his fingers on the hills of Kevin's lower back, over his coat, before sneaking his hands under the fabric and burying them on the back pockets of Kevin's jeans. "You're right. You're not like Andrew. You're worse."

"I find that hard to believe."

"You jumped me in the back of a taxi. I had _barely_ gotten in the backseat."

"And?" Kevin asks, tapping Neil's cheek. "Most fun I ever had. Next time I'll do it in the Maserati."

Neil rolls his eyes, but he can't quite suppress his shiver. "If you want Andrew to crash the car."

"An honorable death. Plus, it would humble him."

"Crashing the car would humble him?"

Kevin hums into his mouth. "No. I meant us making out in the backseat."

Dropping a peck against Kevin's lips, Neil disagrees, "If anything, it would flare his ego even more. He loves the stupid car. It would make him feel luxurious."

"So you say. Aren't you projecting your feelings onto Andrew?"

"Am I?" Neil wonders aloud, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. He is so gorgeous it's infuriating. "I'm sure he'd agree."

That smile, Kevin thinks, is dangerous. It makes Kevin want to give him everything. "Neil," he calls, almost in warning. Neil quirks an eyebrow at him, tipping his head back and letting it hit the headrest. Kevin places a kiss to the tip of his nose to say, "One mark."

Neil blinks lazily, but his hands stutter. "I thought you didn't like them."

"I don't like the ownership they imply," Kevin hums, "and sometimes I can't tell if they're hickeys or bruises. But," he leans closer to Neil's face, "I want you to give me one."

"Kevin," Neil replies, his voice small and restrained, "you're not— you're not _mine._ " 

And he says _not mine_ with such longing; as if the words pained him. Kevin feels it again: the urge to give Neil everything, himself included. "No," Kevin quietly agrees, "but isn't it fun to pretend?"

His hands unwind from Kevin's pockets to meet his jawline, tipping it back. "Yes or no?" Neil asks, razor-like focus on the exposed skin of Kevin's neck.

"Yes," he replies, and it's enough. All the windows of Kevin's body are open violently at the insistent way in which Neil's lips kiss a bruise into the skin of his neck, just near his Adam's apple, visible enough for Kevin to know that he'll be hearing jokes about it next practice. 

Neil nips at the bruise afterwards, a slight press of teeth that has Kevin's breath hitching and his entire body tensing up before relaxing completely. When he deems it red enough, Neil presses apologetic kisses around it, humming a "Done," under his breath.

Kevin's hands, which had been petting Neil's hair all this time, briefly stop their ministrations to tug gently at an auburn strand. "Are you satisfied?" he asks, at last.

"Never enough of you," Neil replies easily, letting his hands carefully slide down to Kevin's neck, tracing the bruise with the tip of his finger. "Will you try to ice it out?" 

He continues to pet Neil's hair. "No."

"Why not?"

"You ask so many questions."

"Kevin."

Kevin rolls his eyes. "I thought you wanted other people to see it."

"Just because I want something it doesn't mean you have to give it to me," is Neil's answer.

"Neil," Kevin says, tone sobering at the way Neil is watching him. He brings their foreheads together, nosing against Neil's cheek while still petting his hair. "I wanted it. I asked you to do it and I wanted it. Okay?"

Neil nods. "But did you— do you want people to see it?"

Kevin closes his eyes. "I can't answer that," he murmurs, "because I will not like my answer as much as you will."

He doesn't say — _yes, I want them to think I'm yours and I hate that I do, because I shouldn't_. Neil understands it anyways, and squeezes Kevin's face once, twice, almost in reassurance. They're quiet for the rest of the ride, but it's okay; Neil had meant it when he said he wouldn't wrestle the yes out of Kevin, and all he did was gently rub at Kevin's lower back as the city moved and shifted around them. The bruise throbbed a bit, but Kevin said nothing. 

In the elevator, Kevin drapes his long coat against Neil’s back by pulling him closer and hiding him behind the fabric. It startled a laugh out of Neil, who bumped his forehead against Kevin’s chest and wrapped his hands around his waist. It was easier by a whole world, like this, if only because Kevin was already so bad at talking as he was — he knew Neil could figure out by his touch that Kevin wasn’t angry at him (he _was_ angry at himself, which was a completely different anger he had no time to decipher), and wanted him close. 

It’s only a little bit after eleven when they get to the apartment, Jean’s bedroom still empty, but he’s happy to shed out of his outside clothes once more, letting the coziness of home wash away the weird feeling of being out of his skin after willingly allowing Neil to kiss a bruise into his neck, in spite of how much of a claim a mark implied. For a chilling second he starts thinking that he might have to owe one to Andrew, too, but Neil had said before that Kevin doesn’t owe them anything, and he believes it. He enjoyed it very much, but he is caught thinking that maybe he shouldn’t have: what good would it be to belong to someone again? How could he trust himself to two people who were, at one point, so remarkably bad at caring for him? 

Kevin prods at his thoughts and wishes in the kitchen, glass of water on his hand and hip leant against the counter. Did his enjoyment of the mark Neil left come from Kevin’s own desire or the idea that his previous hookups could do anything they wanted to his body in the Nest? Was he willing to turn control over to Neil because Kevin trusted him, believed in him or because he thought Neil would react badly otherwise? Did he _want_ this or did he want to feel _wanted_ , which are two completely different things? Was this infatuation any close to becoming codependency, perhaps even blind trust? What were the risks? What was Kevin even offering when he said he’d jump Neil at the Maserati — and would Neil take it as a promise he now _had_ to keep?

He was left with more questions than answers, and the mortifying feeling of knowing everything that could’ve gone wrong with the amount of vulnerability he’d shown Neil today. 

A fear: Riko’s controlling iron fist is what conditioned Kevin to be so willing to compromise himself, even if physically, for someone else's sake.

Another fear: Kevin can’t be loved painlessly, and, likewise, can’t love someone who won’t hurt him.

A bigger fear: if he is not perfectly prim and proper, palatable and cut in bite-sized pieces, offered in a golden plate, no one will want him. If he is not perfect and irreproachable in every possible way, no one — dead or alive, because Riko never wanted a Kevin that wasn’t perfect — will ever want him as anything but perhaps a punchbag. 

The biggest fear: that that is what he’s going to become; a punchbag. Kevin shouldn’t let himself be fooled by gentle hands and reassuring words — wasn’t Riko nice at first too? Wasn’t he Kevin’s friend until he wasn’t? — because cruelty is always possible later, and he’d already be compromised then. 

He needs, needs, needs — to remind himself that Riko was an exception; an isolated case; that it wasn’t Kevin who deserved the abuse, but Riko who was sick enough to give it to him. To forget the faces and names of everyone in the Nest, even those whom Kevin had said yes to, most of them out of insistence or coercion. He needs — to remember Thea. Thea is always a good memory. She never once tried to hurt him; and God, did she have reasons to. 

The truth is that their fallout wasn’t a fallout: she knew Kevin wasn’t doing well, and they both saw how it affected their relationship, because it was too hard to accept her love when Kevin thought he didn’t deserve it in the first place. Thea was the first person to ever see worth in Kevin beyond what Riko saw, and had taken him back with open arms after everything that went down — she kept Kevin alive for longer than she will ever know, and it’s her memory that comforts him, most of the time. They talk sometimes, if only because Kevin will never be able to live a life without her in it, and her voice, warm and steady like a flame, is what keeps him moving, keeps him from sinking into the thoughts he knows Riko implanted in his head. 

An irrefutable truth: Thea knew how to love him painlessly.

Another: she used to try and call him baby, sweetheart, darling, and Kevin had to ask her to stop because he didn’t think he deserved it. Because the endearments felt dirty when directed at him. 

Another: she held him very carefully, and taught him how to braid hair when he needed something to fidget with. 

Another: Thea was not an exception. Riko was. Thea saw in Kevin something worth loving not because she was benevolent and could find it in herself to do him the favor of loving him — she did not do any favors, in fact —, but because Kevin was loveable. Worthy. 

A conclusion: it doesn’t always have to hurt. With the memory of Thea and River almost solid in his mind, Kevin can see through the fog of his paranoia that he is not the problem; that there is no additional gene that makes him prone to abuse. Kevin was not just loveable, but beloved — there was no need to store such catastrophic fear in his chest.

He downs his glass of water and runs a hand through his hair, focusing on all the sweet little nothings Neil — and even _Andrew,_ who is by far the sourest person Kevin knows — had told him because he wanted to, without expecting anything back. Kevin gathers an army of memories before feeling composed enough to return to the bedroom, where Neil lazily sprawled out over his bed, the kitten curled just beside his hip. She’d spent the entire day sleeping, taking short breaks to eat or play with Kevin’s hands as they watched the God awful reality show, and that did not seem to deter her from turning around on her back, lazily spread out over Kevin’s sheets. It was a lovely sight, and he admired from the doorway briefly before making himself known in the room.

Neil looks up from his phone, his eyes burning in assessment as they raked through Kevin’s frame. “Still yes?” he asks. 

“Yes,” Kevin replies. He stalks over to gather the kitten on his arms, all but a ball curled up in his chest, and he quietly nuzzles the furry back of her small head, feeling it rest against his shoulder. It’s true that he had no idea how to care for a kitten, but she’d been settling in well, and she was attached to Kevin’s ankles like a magnet wherever he went; that had to count for something.

Slowly, Neil adjusts his phone so that the camera is right into Kevin’s line of sight, probably to keep him in the frame. “Can I?” Neil inquiries, a funny look in his eyes.

Kevin huffs. “Yes.”

His phone makes a clicking sound, then another, then another, before Neil pulls it away, rolling around to give Kevin space to lie beside him. He does, placing the kitten on his chest like they often did at night, and curiously peeks over Neil’s shoulders to stare at the pictures. They're nice, he thinks — Kevin looks… Happy in them. Comfortable; cozy. There are not many pictures in which he looks like that, and even less so genuinely. The bruise is half visible in the pictures, now purple and red, but it doesn’t look so bad: Kevin can somewhat see the appeal after the initial discomfort of seeing himself with a bruise-like mark. 

“What are you even going to do with this picture?” Kevin murmurs, petting the kitten absentmindedly. 

Neil turns around to smile at him mischievously. “Put it as my lockscreen.”

“That’s suspicious. Someone will see it, eventually. Pray it’s not Nicky.”

He falls quiet for a second. “I don’t really want to hide you,” Neil hums, his finger pairing over Kevin’s head on the screen. “And, anyways, the only other person who uses my phone is Andrew. Which, I was about to ask—” 

Kevin rolls his eyes. “If you can send it to him?”

“If I can send it to him, yes.”

“Yeah,” he replies, rolling around on his side and letting the kitten slide to the space in front of him, her paws clutching at the front of his hoodie. Kevin folds into Neil’s side delicately, resting his cheek against his shoulder, and Neil’s hand flies to play with the hair on his nape as if second nature. “What are you even doing that’s so time consuming?”

Neil laughs. “Texting you-know-who. He says you didn’t answer your phone."

“It’s dead,” Kevin mutters, adjusting his head to lie over Neil’s bicep. “What did he want?”

“Checking in, I guess.” He shrugs, making Kevin shake with him in the process due to their proximity. With his free hand, Neil thumbs away at the screen of his phone, doing the entire process of sending all of the three pictures he took to Andrew, who had been in the middle of typing something. The typing stops for a second, then comes back. 

**Andrew is typing…**

**Andrew is typing…**

**Andrew:** _I did not ask you to send me pictures._

Neil smiles fondly. Kevin watches him, blinking blearily and feeling sleep come slowly.

**Neil:** _I’m sure you can make an exception._

 **Neil:** _And don’t be rude. K’s reading, too._

Kevin huffs to his shoulder, too tired to say anything but still wanting to manifest his annoyance. Neil laughs. 

**Andrew:** _I fail to see where I asked. I have no interest in your compulsive cuddling._

 **Andrew:** _And tell him to ice that bruise._

**Neil: *** _Hickey_

**Andrew:** _Do I look stupid to you?_

 **Andrew:** _A bruise, still. Not in one piece as far I am aware._

“He’s so annoying,” Neil murmurs, but there are lines of love in his eyes that don’t lie, crinkling at the edge ever so slightly. 

“Very,” Kevin quietly agrees. 

**Neil:** _Jealousy is a disease and I hope you get well soon._

 **Neil:** _Go to bed. Look at the time. So late. You woke up early today._

**Andrew is typing…**

**Andrew:** _I will block your number._

**Neil:** _Goodnight, then. Sleep well. I’ll fight the bad dreams for you._

Not even a second later, Andrew’s number is unavailable for Neil to text. It makes him burst into laughter, mostly, his shoulder shaking where Kevin leant against it, and he locks his phone once more, throwing it to the bedside. “He’ll unblock me in the morning,” Neil murmurs to him as if it’s a well-kept secret, turning his face to Kevin’s slightly. “Can’t go without me for too long.”

Kevin chuckles softly. “Good thing he doesn’t have to, then.”

“Mhm,” Neil replies, reaching out to press a kiss between Kevin’s eyebrows. “Still yes to sleeping?”

“Yes,” he answers in nothing louder than a soft hum. “Turn the lights off and the nightlight on, _s’il te plait._ ”

Neil presses another kiss between his eyebrows for good measure before detangling himself from Kevin and reaching for the nightlight on his bed stand, tapping it on. It’s not nearly as bright with the lights on, granted, but the faint projection of ocean waves against the wall beside his bed soothes him to no end. Neil slides out of the bed to turn off the lights, sending Kevin one last assessing stare before flicking the lights off, only the soft blue of Kevin’s nightlight giving him any clue of how close Neil is to the bed. 

He tentatively slides under the duvet, the kitten flexing her paws before disappearing to their feet. “Don’t kick her in your sleep,” Kevin warns, watching Neil struggle with his own hands for a second before deciding on giving Kevin space instead of affection. 

“I don’t move in my sleep,” Neil promises. “I got tired of being punched awake by Andrew.” 

Kevin blinks at him, adjusting his eyes to the nightlight. The blue made Neil look softer than usual, his face made out of shadows, and he is too far away for Kevin’s liking — “We’re not sleeping like this,” slips out of his mouth before he can control it. 

Neil freezes for a second before immediately shooting up. “That’s okay, I’ll just go to the spare bedroom—”

“No,” Kevin protests softly, wrapping a gentle hand around Neil’s wrist to keep him from getting up. “That’s not what I meant. Stay.”

Slowly, so slowly, Neil eases back into the bed, lowered by Kevin’s hand on his chest. “Stay,” he repeats for emphasis, quiet like a ghost. “I meant that it helps if you’re touching me. I’ll know it’s you.”

“Tell me where to put my hands,” Neil whispers back. 

Kevin gingerly grabs both of his hands and places them on his sides before turning around in Neil’s hold, giving him his back. A leap of trust, surely — the most vulnerable of sleep positions —, but he’d liked it earlier today, and he likes it now. Neil’s arms wrap around his waist firmly, his forehead pressed against Kevin’s nape, and it’s such a tight clutch Kevin thought it was odd that he felt reassured instead of cornered. One of Neil’s palms, the one splayed on top of his stomach protectively, gently sneaks under his hoodie, pressing against Kevin’s skin. 

It’s quiet for a while — Kevin adjusts to the position rather easily, Neil a warm lightweight in his back, the kitten just by his ankles. He takes stock of his body and mind in the silence, questioning himself if this is okay, after all, and finding no reason for it to not be. Neil’s scarred hand was as good of a reminder as any of who he was with, and his arms were holding him firmly, but not enough to hurt. “This is nice,” Kevin gently lets him know after he is certain of it himself, his hand slipping under his hoodie to rest over Neil’s. “I’ll tell you if it gets bad, but I like you close.”

Neil hummed his agreement, lazily fidgeting with Kevin’s fingers. His next words are quiet; almost timid. “Kevin,” he starts, no louder than a soft breath, “no one is going to touch a strand of your hair again. I promise. Not if I can help it.”

Kevin, in spite of himself and having heard that same promise before from a man that is hours away from the both of them, lets out a small sound of understanding. “You have no choice,” he replies matter-of-factly, “in this position, at least. You’re a barrier between me and the rest of the room. Unless someone comes to stab me in the front, that is, but I suppose there is nothing we could do if that happened.” 

He digs his thumb against Kevin’s abdomen to get him to shut up. “That is why you have nightmares at night,” Neil reprimands. “Look at the things you’re thinking of before bed.”

“It’s a valid concern,” Kevin yawns. 

“Shhh,” he shushes Kevin, dragging his thumb up and down his lower stomach in a soothing motion. “Sleep. It’s quiet time now.”

Kevin huffs indignantly, but allows himself to be lulled into sleep by Neil’s careful hands, one under his hoodie and another holding him in place. Kevin’s wishes and needs were as contrary to each other as they could be: he wanted to be left alone at the same time that he needed someone to hold him firmly, with care, so he wouldn’t break. He wanted to be with them, but needed time and space to sort himself out, if only because Kevin still didn’t feel safe enough to love anyone and trust them to love him back. He wanted life, wanted to live it, but didn’t know if he loved it enough to hold on to it, no matter how good it had become. He trusted — craved — kindness, but was always hyper aware of how soon it could change into cruelty.

A creature of opposites, he was, containing multitudes of contradictions within himself. Kevin wants to love them as wholehearted and recklessly as he loved everything else, but when it comes to this specific vulnerability — given rather than taken, having to be remade every day like bread —, all that he knows is loving quietly. Staying in Neil’s arms quietly. Kissing Andrew quietly. Buying them fruit and candy, holding their hands, offering everything he could give without losing himself in the process, all of it quietly. Not virtuous; not graceful; but quiet. 

The night is good. Kevin wakes up once or twice with his heart pounding on his chest, surely, terrified of the weight on his back, but the nightlight instantly reminds him of where he is: these weren’t allowed in the Nest in the first place. Cuddling, too — not allowed. Neil — _definitely_ not allowed. His hands and arms limp in his sleep, still wrapped around Kevin but a lot less firmly, and at some point he feels Neil stir and press one single long kiss to his clothed shoulder before falling back into his slumber, subconscious intimacy of his that soothes Kevin into sleep once more. He’s sure Neil won’t even remember the kiss in the morning, for such is the way the sleep-addled brain works, but Kevin thinks he’ll be remembering it for every moment of his life. 

Neil wakes up first, and his movements rattle Kevin awake. He’s not a light sleeper — didn’t use to be, anyways, when he lived in Fox Tower —, but they were so tightly intertwined that any of Neil’s moves would, inevitably, wake him up. Kevin groans softly, a complaint and a plea for Neil to just stay in bed, and he hears a quiet chuckle that ends up buried in his neck. 

“Good morning,” Neil softly greets, a whisper close to Kevin’s ear, his voice rough from sleep.

“No,” Kevin croaks out, burrowing against his chest, “sleep. No good morning. Sleep.”

Neil gently traces the muscle in his abdomen. “I can’t sleep any longer than this,” he murmurs. 

“Time,” Kevin prompts, not making any sense as far as his fresh-out-of-sleep mind goes, “whazz’ the time?”

Another soft chuckle. “A little bit past eight.” He gently tugs at the hem of Kevin’s hoodie. “Come here. Let me rearrange you.”

“Don’t leave,” he complains under his breath. 

“I won’t,” Neil promises, still tugging at Kevin’s clothes to get him to turn around. When he does — though rather begrudgingly —, Neil arranges him to rest his head against Neil’s collarbones, halfway on top of him with their legs intertwined. 

Kevin feels Neil’s arms rest against his back, and softly asks, “Are you using me as a prop for your phone?”

“Shh,” Neil shushes him the same way he did the night before, petting Kevin’s hair with one of his hands while the one that held his phone up remained on his back. “Sleep.”

The idea feels attractive, so Kevin complies easily, pressing a kiss to Neil’s shoulder as a goodnight and a thank you and a tentative I love you he knows Neil won’t be able to decode. Still, it feels like he knows either way, and his hand continues to gently card through Kevin’s hair. _Happy days,_ Kevin thinks to himself before passing out once more. 

When he wakes up again, both of Neil’s hands are in his hair, now more of a soft fidget than actual petting as he stares into the ceiling, seemingly in thought. Kevin tries to make a sound that resembles a good morning, but it goes out muffled into Neil’s shirt, and he has to blink blearily for at least five more minutes before having the mental capability to ask, rather slurred, “Bored?”

Neil slicks Kevin’s hair back before letting his hands drop to Kevin’s lower back with a quiet hum. “I’m having fun,” he replies, drumming his fingers against Kevin’s back as if to emphasize. “It’s raining. There was a thunderstorm earlier. You slept through it like a baby.”

“Hm,” Kevin absentmindedly answers, focusing on the soft sound of rain outside of his apartment. It’s almost enough to make him want to go back to sleep, but Neil’s been trapped under him for long enough. “Cat—?”

“Knocked out asleep on your feet,” Neil hums, “and I had to take her out when she tried sleeping on your back because you looked decidedly uncomfortable.”

Muffled by Neil’s shirt, Kevin mutters almost unintelligibly, “Nightmare. Didn’t like the weight.”

Neil makes a sound at the back of his throat in sympathy, the vibrations almost making Kevin lose the battle to sleep again. “Did you sleep well?” he asks, scratching at the back of Kevin’s head. “Need some alone time?”

“’s fine,” Kevin murmurs. “I like you close.”

He knocks the back of his hand against Kevin’s temple gently. “I’ve noticed.” Like clockwork, his hands return to Kevin’s hair, petting like you would do a cat. “I like you close, too. Go brush your teeth so I can get a kiss.”

“You,” he draws out, “haven’t brushed your teeth either.”

“You wouldn’t let me move.”

Kevin rolls out of him, blindly reaching on his bed stand and throwing Neil’s phone — or his own, he doesn’t care — in his direction. “Go call Andrew.”

Neil laughs, but doesn’t chase after Kevin when he moves away, probably presuming he wants space. “I already did. I had to whisper on the phone. You’re really as good as dead when you’re asleep.”

"Huh," Kevin replies, squirming until he was lying on his back, shoulder brushing against Neil's. "I didn't hear a thing."

"I'm a good whisperer."

For some reason the mental image makes him feel warm — Neil whispering to the phone as to not wake Kevin up, cocooned in their coziness, inevitably luring Andrew into it. Kevin wants to kiss him, but is acutely aware that his mouth probably smells of dead things. With a sigh, he pulls himself out of the bed, almost stumbling down to the floor.

Neil sends him a curious glance as Kevin brushes his teeth, unbothered by the open door. Kevin has been more or less trying to make peace with his image in the mirror — a hard feature, but not totally impossible. It was a different, odd feeling to hate yourself while a supposed narcissist: Kevin could love the _idea_ of himself, but barely stand the physical sight of it. There is always a lot of self-obsession in self-hatred, which he supposes is a natural way to practice self-awareness, but obsession is hardly ever healthy. Perris often tells him to indulge but not obsess.

His hair is full of knots as he brushes it out, courtesy of Neil's fingers, but he doesn't really mind it all that much — after he deems himself fresh enough all that Kevin does is gather the kitten in his arms and set off to the kitchen, craving coffee. Neil follows in his tow, already so used to the layout of Kevin's apartment he barely has to look to follow, and they end up with mugs of coffee (black for Neil and mixed with almond milk for Kevin, who almost made a sugary mug for Andrew before realizing he wasn't there) on their hands as they stare out at the pouring rain, the balcony soaked in it.

Thunder cuts through the sky briefly, startling Kevin ever so slightly, and Neil lets out a laugh. "Are you scared of thunderstorms?" he asks, quirking an amused eyebrow behind the rim of his mug. 

"No," Kevin replies, taking a sip of his own coffee, "it was just a sudden loud sound."

"Hm," Neil hums, "it did not bother you any when you were asleep."

Kevin rolls his eyes. "It's because you were there."

Neil's face gentles, his gaze falling to the mark in Kevin's neck. "You can always trust that I won't let anything happen to you."

Protection. Trust. Familiar concepts with often unpleasant results. At last, Kevin replies, "You're turning into Andrew."

"That's not a bad thing," he protests, knocking his shoulder against Kevin's gently. 

Kevin huffs, leaning onto Neil's side. "What do you want, Josten?"

Neil's hand slowly falls to Kevin's thigh, tapping against the skin distractedly. There is nothing to do — Kevin waits for him to sort out his thoughts, mulling over what it is that he wants, after all. Neil did that often: fall into a quiet wondering, the sinewy paths of his mind still too slippery for Kevin to follow after. 

Most of the time he has no idea what goes through Neil's mind, but Kevin isn't in a rush to know — he does not feel as if he needs to know everything Neil thinks of, and hopes Neil doesn't feel as if he needs to know everything Kevin thinks of, either. They were good because they were separate people who liked being together for the sake of it, and there was no need to overcompensate the years apart by becoming so intimate they would not know where one of them starts and where the other ends. 

It also occurs to him that Neil might still have secrets he can't tell Kevin about, information he can't compromise, thoughts that are only his to keep. That is okay. Kevin is not a possessive person: both Neil and Andrew have the utmost freedom to do as they please, and Kevin does not want them to limit themselves for his sake. Kevin's world is small — a racket, two teams, a father he calls every weekend, two not-boyfriends not-friends-with-benefits, a neighbor that can't remember his name —, and, likewise, so were his possessions. He could count on one hand how many things he owned, and not a single person was in that list. 

Love, to Kevin, is freedom. He did not want to own anyone and did not want to be owned by anyone. In the end, that seemed to be the problem: when was the last time Andrew and Neil loved something they didn't own?

Eventually, what Neil settles as his answer is, "I don't want you to do this with other people." He encircles his mug with his palm, looking out into the storm once more. "I know you hate— possessiveness, but I can barely stand the thought of it. I don't want you to be like this with anyone else." Neil taps against the rim of his mug. "I know I don't have the right to not want that."

Kevin studies him for a second. "That's," he corrects, "not possessiveness. Andrew is possessive. The word you are looking for is jealousy."

Neil scoffs. "What's the difference?" 

"Jealousy is when you feel threatened by others looking at what's yours," he explains, tone gentle, "and possessiveness is when you feel disrespected by it."

"I don't think you're mine," is Neil's reply, "I just want you to be."

Kevin leans back against the couch, bringing his coffee to his mouth in thought. "You can't not have this," he puts down slowly, a clinical observation. "You need the safety of exclusivity."

Neil's shoulder slump. "I don't want to take this from you."

He shrugs. "You know I'm not doing this with anyone else. That's not what's bothering you. You," Kevin draws out, "want to have me."

"I have made that obvious."

"Hm."

"Kevin," Neil insists, "talk to me. What do you think?"

And the truth is that he doesn't know. Jealousy — Kevin knew jealousy intimately. A green feeling; ever-expanding; inevitable. He wasn't stupid to think that Neil had nothing to be jealous of, because Kevin knows well enough how the distance takes a toll on him bigger than it takes on Andrew: Neil was afraid of being forgotten, left behind, in a way Andrew knew he wouldn't be. It made sense that he thought the people in Kevin's life were a threat.

At last, Kevin sighs. "I'm not angry at you," he reassures, putting down his mug of coffee and doing the same to Neil's before pushing him to the couch, straddling his hips. It communicated everything Kevin hoped was clear: that he wouldn't, couldn't, replace Neil, and that he had no intentions to. "I don't blame you for how you feel. I just want to know what it would even change, for you, if you had me."

Neil brings his hands to Kevin's hips, a gentle hold. "I would know that you want me," he lists off, looking up at Kevin, pinning him under his gaze. "Andrew and I wouldn't have to lie about you. We would have our own room in Columbia. People would know you belong with us."

Kevin leans down to press a kiss to his temple. "You don't have anyone to feel threatened by."

"But I do," he insists. "You're not stupid, Kevin. Everyone wants something from you. You're _you._ It's not your fault that people hover, but—" Neil drags his thumb up and down Kevin's waist. "They do. And I don't want them to think they have a chance."

For one, Kevin can understand. Standing in the awkward middle between lovers and friends is not a walk in the park — they're losing every part of the benefits each time they are forced to acknowledge this quarrel, and Kevin knows it'll take time until they compromise on a middle ground. It occurs to him that he was never jealous of Andrew and Neil because they only had each other, but Kevin was not bound by commitment like they were; it came implied that he could do whatever he wanted with whomever. 

He places careful hands over Neil's chest, feeling his heartbeat stutter ever so slightly. "There is no one I want aside from you and Andrew," Kevin promises quietly, a dangerous piece of information to give out so easily. Hopefully, it won't blow out in his face. "There is no one at all."

Neil brings a hand to rest over Kevin's atop of his chest. "It's unfair," he murmurs, "that you say these things. I'll think about them forever, even when you don't want me anymore."

Kevin frowns. "Why do you say that?"

He shrugs. "Expiration date. There is only so much you can put up with me pestering you about this."

Oh.

"And there is only so much you can put up with me denying you this," Kevin replies, his frown deepening. 

Neil shakes his head, letting his hands slide back to Kevin's hips. "I told you we're not going to wrestle the yes out of you. Deny it all you want. It's only over when you say it is."

And now Kevin has lost his leverage — "You don't mean that," he accuses. 

"Surely you didn't think me and Andrew would just eventually kick you off?" Neil asks, a genuinely curious quirk to his eyebrow. When Kevin doesn't reply, his face falls. " _Kevin._ "

"Not kick me off," he limits himself to correcting, "but give up, eventually."

"You're not disposable like that."

Kevin opens his mouth to reply, but Neil cuts him off, "You're not."

"Okay." He tucks a strand of Neil's hair against his ear. 

"Kevin," Neil insists, his voice falling into a whisper, "I don't want you to be a secret. I don't want you to be a part time." He tightens his hands around him. "I want more."

He huffs, lowering himself against Neil until they're chest-to-chest. "You always do," Kevin murmurs. He waits a few seconds to admit, "I like that you do."

"I won't take," Neil whispers, "I won't take anything, but I want you to know that I want more. And that I don't mind waiting."

And it has to be enough, for now, that what Kevin does is press a kiss to Neil's forehead and say, "I'll try my very best, but we'll have to wait and see."

He doesn't say that it will happen — Kevin can't promise it, and Neil knows that. He had meant what he told Andrew in that ballroom: Kevin loves his liberty way too well to be in any hurry to give it up. It wasn't funded by the anger or the boundless urge to rebel, but something much steadier, stronger than before, a quiet flame burning under his skin that told Kevin he was property of no man, dead or alive. He doesn't want to be told what to do; what to say; who to be; doesn't want to be anyone's angry dog; doesn't want to be put on display for the rich men to gawk at and bet on.

Kevin doesn't want mild, lukewarm freedom — he doesn't want to look around one day and realize that he's just been coerced into larger borders this time; a prison big enough for him to not see the bars and forget it is a prison in the first place. He doesn't want the lesser freedom: he wants the one that drips down his chin savagely, darkest of berries, and he wants it raw and feral, in some utopic way Kevin could've only dreamt of in the Nest. He's waited long enough, and he wants it now. 

In the end, Neil makes a sound that might be agreement, defeat or acceptance, maybe a mix of the three, and allows Kevin to do as he pleases.

Kevin presses a kiss to the tip of his nose, but it's not gratitude — a wild animal doesn't thank the hunter for not hunting it; trees don't thank the axe that doesn't cut them; and, likewise, Kevin doesn't thank a man for doing the bare minimum. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry i cannot give u an exact date again 🤲 im swamped w academic work until this friday but until then please have a good day! the wait will be shorter w the next chapter, promise 🤞


	9. you're a queen, selling dreams: pt. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> taylor swifts new album being released after i was done with this fic genuinely feels like a hate crime. if you want to listen to tnoftgs new theme song look up the song dorothea it doesnt get more kandreil than that!

Perris’ office is a small, dingy room built in a two-storey tall townhome Kevin always mistakes for the wrong building every time he is late for a session. 

The coffee at the reception is bad, watered down and impossibly bitter, almost enough to make Andrew — sweetest tooth Kevin knows — shiver in disgust. 

The chair and couch are made of old, old leather and have one too many pillows on top of them, those of which Kevin always accidentally kicks to the floor mid-rant. 

It’s always too hot or too cold in there: a foul heater, Kevin supposes, and an even foulier air conditioner. Both are long due for a change, and more often than not he wonders if Perris would accept it if Kevin bought new, better-working models of both for him, a gift of sorts. 

Even the carpet — lime green so ancient it became grayish over the years, or so Perris says —, fluffy as it is, adds to the room’s unintended wretchedness, a handful of stains here and there Kevin has asked about one too many times and has never gotten a good answer. He thinks he knows, though, more or less: Kevin stares at the ground so much during their sessions he came to the conclusion that most stains on the carpet are from cigarette ashes, and Perris is just reluctant to admit that he is a smoker. A curious habit for a man that strictly berates Kevin for his addictive personality, but he reckons it might be because that is what Kevin pays him to do in the first place. 

Perris is a middle-aged grizzly man, as the name may suggest. Kevin’s idea of a therapist was solely based on what he knew from Betsy — also a middle-aged grizzly woman, though with a lot more mirth to it — when they first met, but now he can recognize that he has more experience with Perris’ type of counselling than not, making it unlikely for Kevin to ever find him odd again in spite of his ancient-looking carpet and unnervingly long silents. He is rather unsure if other therapists are like this or if Perris is just particularly strange, but, either way, Kevin can admit he feels an odd fondness not only for this room, but also for the man sat across from him, thick eyebrows knit together as he clicks his pen almost obsessively.

Today’s session had been good, if only because half of it had been Kevin’s lengthy rundown of his last few weeks, everything from the trip to Boston to Neil’s abrupt weekend-long stay at his apartment. He’d considered for a second to maneuver himself around the romantic implications of him, Andrew and Neil before eventually deciding he’d have to come out to Perris sooner or later, and gave him a much briefer rundown of their relationship, of which Perris had looked incredibly surprised by. Now, though, after half an hour of Kevin prodding and poking at his own issues in regards to them, Perris just looks… Familiarized. As if he saw it coming a mile away, months before Kevin even noticed there was something going on. 

“You know,” Perris hums, tugging at the hem of his honey-brown vest. Today is one of the days where his office is too hot — Kevin had discarded his coat the second he got in. “I always thought there was something odd about the way they acted. When you told me they were clingier to you than usual after your graduation I figured it was some sort of attachment, but I didn’t think it was romantic.”

Kevin huffs, almost knocking down his boots as he gathers his legs on the couch, bringing them to his chest. “They are the most complicated people in the world,” he informs him, falling back on Perris’ colorful pillows. “Neil is— a professional liar, and Andrew never says what he means. It’s like being wanted by a brick wall. I never know what is going through their heads.”

Perris taps his pen against his glasses — round, absolutely ridiculous, though Kevin thought he made it work — in thought. “Does it bother you?” he asks, assuming his counselling voice once more. “We’ve talked about not being able to understand other people’s clues before. Do you think that’s worsened by Andrew and Neil?”

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t bother me because they answer when I ask. I mean—” Kevin motions vaguely. “Neil does. Neil and I have a better understanding because he knows he can’t lie to me. Andrew is… He won’t do anything without being difficult about it first, but I know what he feels because of his actions. It’s not really about picking up clues as much as it’s, like— I don’t really get the appeal.”

“The appeal of what?” Perris quirks an eyebrow.

“Of me,” Kevin confesses. When Perris opens his mouth to reply, Kevin cuts him off by continuing, “I don’t mean it in a self-depreciative way. Andrew and Neil are people who have suffered a lot in the past, which, in return, has made them rightfully intense about the things they love. They both have issues with possessiveness and jealousy and control. And I’m,” he hesitates, “I’m especially unpleasant about that. I’m always putting up a fight; pulling away. I don’t know how they put up with it.”

“But why do you think you put up such a fight against them?”

That’s a harder question. Kevin considers it for a second before answering, “I think it’s because I don’t have the luxury of being a fool in love anymore. I’m always— paranoid about what people can do once they get me vulnerable. And I know—” he cuts Perris’ reply off once more, “that it’s because of the Nest. I know that. I trust them enough to know that they won’t hurt or take advantage of me, in theory, but it’s different in practice. Which is what makes me believe I’m not ready for a relationship, after all, no matter how much I want it.”

“You,” Perris drags out, “have a terrible interrupting problem, did you know that?”

“Yes. But since I already knew what you were going to say, there was no point in wasting time hearing it.”

That startles a laugh out of Perris. “Jesus Christ, Kevin,” he replies, a sentence Kevin has heard a thousand times before. He shakes his head slightly, almost fondly, then sobers up to observe, “With issues like yours, I find it unlikely that you will ever jump into a relationship the way other people do, but you are putting too little faith in yourself. I mean — you even told me you slept with them in the same bed as you, which you wouldn’t have been able to do a few months back. That is a big vote of trust, already.”

Kevin mulls that over on his head for a second. “I know that it is,” he quietly confesses, “and it bothers me, frankly. I’m constantly at odds with how much I’m willing to give them. Shouldn’t I know better by now?”

“Loving people is not something you grow out of,” Perris points out. “It’s as natural as breathing. You’ll never know better than that.”

“Not the point.”

“It is the point,” he insists, shifting in his chair. “I have listened to you talk about these men for weeks already, and each time you got more and more open about it. You trust and love them enough to let them into your house, your bed, your life. You even said you’re willing to turn control over to them in physical situations — a feat, Kevin, really, for someone with your issues —, and that you trust them to not do you any harm. How is that a bad thing?”

Kevin falls quiet. “It is a bad thing because it can not last.”

“How do you want it to last if you refuse to commit to them?”

He stops. 

Stares at his shoes.

Stares at the carpet.

Stares at the newest ash stain. 

Stares at the oldest.

Looks up at Perris again. “You,” Kevin starts, “are a son of a bitch, did you know that?”

The grin Perris sends him is too mischievous for someone his age. “I love it when you realize you’re wrong, Kevin. It really gives me joy.”

“But—” he insists, stressing his words with his hands, “it’s not just about trust. It’s ownership, too. I can’t— I don’t want to _belong_ to them.”

“You won’t belong _to_ ,” Perris corrects him, “you’ll belong _with,_ which is different.”

“You don’t know that.”

“It seems to me that they were quite willing to respect your boundaries. Enthusiastic, even, in Andrew’s case.”

“Yes, but,” Kevin sighs. “I’ve seen this movie before. It never works out for me when I love someone this much.”

“Well, Kevin,” he starts, tone mild, “you haven’t really loved a lot of people before. We’ve discussed in our sessions that you did not love Riko, you were just trained to take his abuse, which, again, is different. You can’t use him as a reference for love because he isn’t one in the first place.”

“What else am I supposed to compare it to?” Kevin asks, shoulders slumping. “There is no one else. The last, the _only_ person to ever get as close as Andrew and Neil are now was Riko.”

Perris taps his pen against his cheek. “What about Aaron? Robin? River?”

“What about them?”

“You told me they are people you are close to. And none of them have hurt you before.”

Kevin clams his mouth shut. “It’s a different relationship.”

“It’s love,” Perris points out. “Intimacy doesn’t have to be sexual or based on trauma, Kevin. These are all people you’re close to despite not having shared a traumatic or sexual experience with. I mean,” he corrects himself before Kevin can, “okay, you slept with River, fine, but that was over as soon as you became friends. Your actual relationship has no base on sexual attraction.”

“Perris,” Kevin starts, “what is your point?”

“You know what my point is,” he replies, easily, his voice falling purposeful once more. “You’re self-sabotaging. Self-blaming, even. You think you were abused because you let people do it to you out of love, but that’s not true. They didn’t do it because you were naive, or too trusting, or loved them too much — part of the abuse in itself was the manipulation to make sure that you didn’t even realize it was abuse at all. Or, in Riko’s case, that you were his property.”

“I—” Kevin stammers, “that’s… I don’t know.”

Perris offers him a lighthearted glare. “Kevin, listen to me: it does not matter, to an abuser, if you are good or bad, sweet or mean, naive or skittish. You were in a position of vulnerability and people took advantage of you for that, but it wasn’t your choice to be in that position. If you think Andrew and Neil are the type of people who would hurt you like that, okay, I believe you, but don’t imply that it’s your fault for loving them too much. It’s never, _never,_ ” he emphasizes, “your fault. You know that.”

Kevin’s grip on the armrest of the couch is so tight his knuckles might as well pop out of his skin. “I don’t think,” he clarifies, “that they are like that.”

“Then,” Perris continues as if it’s obvious, “don’t sabotage a relationship that hasn’t even started yet.”

He hesitates. “I don’t know how to— deal with that. A relationship.”

Perris’ face gentles. “You will know if you talk to them. They can’t read your mind either, Kevin. From what you told me of them, they seem like they’re willing to take care of you and guide you through the changes.”

Kevin slowly nods. Perhaps even a bit feebly, he replies, “Okay. Yeah. Okay. That— makes sense.”

The smile that Perris offers him is almost soft; definitely proud. He reaches beside his chair for the jar atop of his desk, rolling off the lid and offering it in Kevin’s direction with the smile frozen on his face. “A cookie for your psychological breakthrough?” he asks, holding out the jar of colorful cookies Kevin knows he got from the supermarket just down the street no matter how many times Perris tries to convince him they’re homemade.

In spite of himself, Kevin reaches into the jar and grabs a cookie with his pointer finger and thumb, staring at it awkwardly for a second before taking a bite. It only serves to make Perris even happier, and he claps in excitement before returning the jar to its rightful place. Kevin is often stricken by how alike Perris and Nicky can be, sometimes, and it’s a frightening thought — they were both sharp-minded people with overwhelmingly quick tongues and unrelenting optimism, something Kevin took a lot of time to learn how to love, at first. 

“That was a pretty heavy session,” Perris sympathetically points out after Kevin is done with his cookie — sugary, thin, charmingly bland —, resting his hands on his crossed knees. “How do you feel? Do you need anything?”

Kevin shakes his head. “Nothing you can give me.”

Curiously, Perris quirks an eyebrow. “Is it perhaps your darlings that you need?” 

“My what?”

“Would you rather I use the term loverboys?”

He scrunches up his nose in distaste. “Just Andrew and Neil is fine, thanks.” Then, after a heartbeat: “But yes. It is,” he motions vaguely, “them that I need. Or whatever.”

“Or whatever,” Perris nods. “It’s been a while since you last saw them in person, isn’t that right?”

Kevin taps his fingers against the fabric of his jeans. “A few weeks. They’ll be on break, though. Soon.”

“How lovely,” he hums, leaning back into his chair. “Will they stay with you?”

“I,” he hesitates, “don’t know yet. Maybe.”

“It seems like you want them to.”

“I mean—” Kevin hesitates again. “I think they’re waiting for me to invite them first. I already invited Robin, though. So if I invite them, it means that we’ll either have to tell her or lie. And it also implies,” he falls quiet, “the three of us sleeping together. Since she’ll be in the spare room.”

“Hm,” Perris answers suggestively, “it seems like a great scenario to practice commitment, doesn’t it?”

“It’s only on Christmas, though. That’s far from now.”

“Not at all. Christmas is two and a half weeks away.”

“That’s— far from now.”

Perris smiles. “Our time is over, Kevin. Let me walk you to the reception.”

He does that sometimes: plant the seed of a thought in Kevin’s head and cuts their conversation short so Kevin can get to the conclusion himself. Perris is a despicable, despicable man — Kevin doesn’t know why he keeps paying this man to call him out on his bullshit if he can call Andrew and get the same treatment for free. 

It’s, of course, a lie: Kevin knows why he’s been with him this whole time. Perris makes it easier to exist in his own mind with his sharp one-liners and stubborn optimism, and the change is evident in every aspect of his life, which is why he doesn’t complain at all about the uncomfortable office or the sugary cookies or the teasing words. When Kevin loses a piece of himself, Perris always seems to give it back — he never lets Kevin disappear, and maybe that is the entire point of therapy in the first place. Little by little, life gets easier to navigate; easier to maneuver and hold on to. It’s almost no surprise at all that Kevin doesn’t want to die anymore. 

Perris walks him to the reception, as planned, and bids Kevin a cheerful goodbye as he slides into his car, a small brown dot standing at the door. None of this would ever be allowed in the Nest, and even less under Riko’s ownership: Kevin relishes in the feeling as he steps on the pedal, a little bit too hard before normalizing his speed once more. This is life, now — therapy on Tuesdays, dinner parties on Fridays with no games, lovers who care about him and enough reasons to celebrate if he wants to go clubbing. A life like that was once completely out of Kevin’s reach, but he finds that he is happy to mourn his younger self’s expectations for what life would be like at twenty-two. 

In fact, he thinks his teenager self would even find him a bit lame. That’s okay. Kevin is not a teenager anymore and he is, likewise, not above admitting that he enjoys his small, quiet life. 

He barely makes it into his apartment before Andrew’s call reaches his phone, an usual Tuesday night occurrence. It makes Kevin wonder if Andrew has a scheduled alarm to remember when to call him, but it’s an unfounded idea, given Andrew never forgets anything in the first place. Clicking his door open and slotting the phone between his ear and shoulder, Kevin hums, “Andrew, hello.”

There is a pause before Andrew replies, “Kevin. Where were you?”

It would be an ominous sentence from anyone else, but since it’s Andrew, Kevin knows that is just his way of greeting. This is how Kevin thinks his thought process went: Andrew heard Kevin’s keys jingling from his side of the line and assumed he had been out, which then made him curious about what Kevin was doing, which, in return, prompted him into asking where he was, giving Kevin enough of a leeway to not specify his answer if he does not want to share what he was doing out in the first place. 

“Therapy,” Kevin hums, kicking off his shoes after locking the door behind him. “I told him about you.”

Andrew scoffs. “I am sure he knows everything about me.”

“Not everything,” he disagrees easily, shrugging off his coat. “Mostly the good bits.”

“Hm,” he replies from his side of the line. Kevin hears muffled shuffling before Andrew prompts, “Are you alive?”

He smiles fondly to himself at the familiarity of Andrew’s words; a predictable, usual phrase he’s heard Andrew say a thousand times by now. “Yes. And well, too. It was a good session. Heavy, but good.”

“Heavy,” Andrew repeats. “I thought you had told him about me.”

“I didn’t use up an entire therapy session to talk about you,” Kevin bluntly tells him, grabbing the cat food from the counter and shoving it back in the drawers. They’d gotten her an automatized feeder that only filled her bowl thrice a day — unsurprisingly, she absolutely hates it. “But part of it was about you and Neil. It ended in a good conclusion.”

“I see,” is what Andrew says, at last. “I am calling to say that we are visiting.”

Kevin stills, a frown to his features. Surely nothing had happened to make them worry themselves into visiting, and after their exams, Kevin had expected them to want a bit of rest instead of driving down to see him. “When?” he asks, looking around the apartment. It wasn’t like Andrew and Neil to do surprises, either, his mind chimed in. “Did something happen, Andrew?”

A brief pause from Andrew’s line. “When you say you are free. Nothing happened.”

“I am free whenever. There will be no games until next year.” His frown deepens. “It is not like you and Neil to do this out of nowhere. What’s going on?”

“It has been weeks.”

Kevin knew that. “I,” he stammers. The last time Neil visited was in early November, almost an entire month ago. It occurred to him that, to Andrew, it had been even longer since the last time he saw Kevin in person. “Yes. It has been weeks. A month.”

“A month,” Andrew drags out, “is too long.”

“I agree,” he replies. It’s not as if Kevin hadn’t noticed their absence, because sleeping alone when Neil left was brutally bittersweet for the following weeks after his visit, but he’d assumed they were too busy to drive down to see him. Kevin was many things, but he wasn’t the type of not-partner that told his not-partners what to do. “Practices end next week. You should come this weekend.”

Andrew is silent for a moment. “We could stay the week.”

“Your classes.”

“I have all my credits. Neil does not care about class.”

Kevin frowns. “I’m not like that. It’s okay if you can’t come until classes are over.”

From his side of the line, Andrew sighs, longsuffering. “Yes or no, Kevin? The whole week.”

“Will it jeopardize your classes?”

“No.”

Kevin leans against the counter, considering it. After today’s session with Perris, clarity in regards to Andrew and Neil is easier to attain — he’d rather not think about everything they discussed at the moment, the mental exertion too much even for him, but Perris had lifted a weight from his shoulders, at last. He hums, “Yes. Come. Send me a list of what you want me to buy when I go grocery shopping this Thursday.” Then, after Andrew’s agreeing grunt, Kevin tentatively says, “I want to try… Sleeping. The three of us.”

Andrew’s line falls silent. “Why?”

“I want,” Kevin draws out, “to give you more.”

“Because you want to or because it is what you think we want?”

“Andrew,” he softly replies, “I want to.”

“What do you want, Kevin?” Andrew asks, his tone monotone as it is. Still — that he is asking that at all, offering that thread for Kevin to pull on, unafraid of rejection, is a big deal. 

“I can’t say it yet,” Kevin honestly puts down. “I can’t— I’m not _there_ yet. But I want to be. I want to take this seriously. I want to— if you’ll have me.”

And he can’t say _I want to be yours,_ the words caustic on his throat, but Andrew seems to understand all the same. Clinically, he points out, “If Neil heard you saying that he would look as if Christmas came early.”

Kevin huffs, but it’s a fond sound. “He knows he does not have anyone to be jealous of."

Andrew is quiet for a moment. “Yes,” he eventually agrees, “we do not.”

“We?”

“Abram and I share many thoughts.”

“Andrew,” he inquired, “you never said.”

“I do not want you to think,” Andrew easily replies, “that I am trying to own you.”

Kevin makes his way to the living room and drops onto his couch, leveraging his head with a folded blanket forgotten from the night before. “That’s a good call,” he quietly agrees, staring at his ceiling in thought. “I didn’t mean to make you two worry that I was seeing other people. I thought it came implied that I wasn’t.”

“Nothing comes implied.”

Despite himself, Kevin almost laughs. “I know,” he replies, leaning his legs against the back of the couch. “I suppose I didn’t think either of you would care much if you had me or not.”

He can almost hear Andrew’s irritation from the other side of the line. “You surely took too many balls to your head. It has affected your brain greatly.”

“Maybe we’re just bad at communicating.”

“Maybe,” Andrew grumbles irritably. 

“Andrew,” Kevin’s voice gentles considerably; a confession taking place. “There is no one else that I want. If anyone thinks they have a chance, they don’t.” He pauses for a second, sighs, then says: “You got it, Andrew. If you think even for a second that you don’t have me, you clearly haven’t been paying attention.”

Andrew is so quiet Kevin is convinced the call has ended in the middle of his confession and he hadn’t noticed. At last, Andrew replies, “You really are despicable.”

“I know you now. All you do is lie. You want to kiss me.”

“I want to end this call.”

“I’m not stopping you.”

But Andrew doesn’t end the call, and Kevin knows why. For all that they went through, understanding Andrew was an impossible task Kevin always found himself better at executing than expected. “I do not lie,” he corrects Kevin eventually. “An evasion is not a lie.”

“Hm,” Kevin hums. “I bet you must tell yourself that a lot.”

“Shut up.”

“Make me.”

Andrew hesitates. “I cannot,” he drags out, an almost frustrated tinge to his voice, “as I am here, and you are there. You must have noticed.”

“Very well,” he answers, “that sucks for you.”

“You have become insufferable.”

Kevin shrugs, but it’s not like Andrew can see it. “Should have never kissed me if you knew it’d make me realize you want me.”

"Don't be ridiculous."

"See? Point in case: you want me."

Andrew sighs in resignation. "Do not buy the wrong cereal for when we visit," he changes the subject easily. "I know you do it on purpose and this time I will make you swallow it box and all."

"I do not do it on purpose," Kevin protests. "I didn't know there were so many versions of them. I thought chocolate and rice krispies were just the same taste with different colors."

"Rice krispies are the good ones. Chocolate cereal is an abomination."

"I wouldn't know, Andrew."

He huffs from his side of the line. "What do you do with that brain of yours, then? Clearly it is not thinking, as you don't know anything."

"Untrue," Kevin disagrees in the same tone. "I think of you a lot."

"Such flattery," Andrew dryly replies, unmoved. 

"Not flattery. You know I don't lie."

"Yes," is Andrew's answer, "you do not."

"Point in case," Kevin repeats once more, staring at the ceiling absentmindedly. He never knows what to do with himself during phone calls; that hasn't changed yet. "Do you want me to get toothbrushes for you two? I can just leave them in my bathroom instead of making you bring yours every time you visit."

"It makes no sense to have toothbrushes in your apartment but not clothes."

"Then leave some clothes here?" he frowns. "I have a big closet."

"Kevin."

"Andrew."

"What are you doing?"

Kevin huffs. "There is no secret agenda to everything I do, I'll let you know."

He thinks he hears a puff of laughter from Andrew's line, but maybe not. "Unlikely," he replies, then informs: "We will bring clothes. Buy the toothbrushes."

"Black for you, orange for Neil?"

"There is no such thing as a black toothbrush."

"You haven't been paying attention to the market."

"The toothbrush market?" Andrew draws out, unimpressed.

Kevin bites down on a laugh. "The domestic household market."

"Are you a housewife now?"

"Well," he starts, "it's not a bad life."

It really is not. Kevin appreciates a trip to the supermarket perhaps just as much as Mrs. Luna and her crew of elderly ladies do. 

"Hm," Andrew replies. "You are really not yourself anymore."

"No," Kevin agrees, "and it's a good thing."

Andrew thinks about that for a little while before quietly pointing out, "It is." It is silent for a brief moment before there is shuffling from the other side of the line, keys jingling, and then an onslaught of noise Kevin knows all too well. "They have arrived, your creatures."

Kevin chuckles. "Which ones? Robin and Neil?"

"Unfortunately."

Not even a second later Neil's voice finds the phone, "Hello. What did you say to make Andrew look happy?"

"I do not."

"He does not," Robin protests, too. "Is it Kevin? Hi, did you get the thinkpiece I emailed you?"

"I did get it," Kevin replies to the easiest question first, their noise a common, familiar comfort. "I will get around to read it after practices are over. Neil," he starts, falling quiet, "I'll talk to you later."

"Oh," Robin pokes fun, " _someone_ is in trouble."

Far from it, actually, but Kevin can't tell her yet. He can almost see Neil's quirked eyebrow as he says, "That's new.” Then, just as easily, he adds: “Guess what, Kevin? I just got back from class: _perfect_ credits. Who's the nerd now, I wonder? Not you anymore."

"Abram, go shower," Andrew dryly demands, his quiet voice swallowed by the noise. Kevin often wonders how Andrew can stand to live with them, but eventually concludes that through love anything is possible. "You smell like a classroom."

"What's wrong with that?"

"It's not attractive."

Neil hums, but the sound is muffled. "So you think I'm attractive?"

"He said the opposite," Kevin chimes in.

"But that implies there is a time where I am attractive."

"Go shower, Neil."

He scoffs from their side of the line, but bids his goodbyes to do as he's told. Kevin hears Robin's muffled laugh, then teasing words he doesn't catch, then silence once more. Andrew huffs, unamused, "That is _your_ doing. Your responsibility."

Kevin hums in agreement, because there is no point in denying it. "I'm glad you're both coming over. I miss you."

"Shut up."

"No, I do miss you. It's been longer than a month."

Andrew's line is briefly silent. "And what does that change for you?"

"It changes," he starts, "that I owe you many kisses to make up for the entire month."

"You do not owe me anything."

Kevin laughs. "You're impossible to flirt with. Get over here already."

"Bossy," Andrew replies, unmoved, but adds: "Saturday. And we leave on the next Sunday."

"Very well," he nods. For a moment Kevin wants to bring up their Christmas break, but eventually loses the will to do it — they'll visit if they want and have the time to. "I will see you on Saturday. Goodnight?"

It's like he can almost hear Andrew's eyeroll. "Do not die in your sleep," he answers before cutting off the call. That's as much of a goodnight from Andrew as he'll ever get. 

Kevin lets his phone drop to the couch, his hands sliding down to rest over his stomach and his eyes still trained to the ceiling. He’d rather not prod at everything he’s said and done today, if only because Kevin knows it’ll fill him up with dread to acknowledge how much he’d actually _been_ willing to give Andrew and Neil lately, and the obscenely large leap of trust that it is to even admit at all that he wants to be with them. It does not feel safe, still, to compromise himself — but Kevin knows that it never will. He will never be crazy about showing vulnerability of any kind, which, he can recognize, is not enough of a reason to not do it at all, if only because he thinks Andrew and Neil deserve it the most.

It’s not a debt — Kevin knows he doesn’t owe them anything, and there is a difference in doing something because you think you have to and because you want to. Oftentimes he is increasingly certain that they know something about the sinewy paths of Kevin’s mind ( _But what would they know?_ he’d argue with himself, _They can’t read minds. You’re being paranoid),_ which, for some reason, is more terrifying than comforting to imagine: after all this effort to build boundaries, Kevin is often afraid that he’ll be shamed or reprimanded for his worries and paranoias. If Andrew and Neil cracked his skull open and read each of his thoughts aloud, Kevin thinks they’d like him way, way less. In fact, he thinks they’d find him unsightly; no good at all.

But Kevin is not good. Not always. He is neither agreeable or rational sometimes, and Perris tries to convince him that it’s okay — there is no one waiting for Kevin to slip so they can shame him for being a human person that isn’t always perfectly easy to deal with. For once, he wishes he had someone else in his head instead of himself, someone unapologetically human like River, or assertive like Yonah, or sweet like Sarah, or really just anyone that isn’t Kevin with his particular hand of issues. For once, he wishes someone would tell him what to do, just so he could not take the advice and be prompted into doing what he really wants to do in the first place. 

He doesn’t have a lot of time to wallow in his misery: as inevitable as recovery is, it is also certain, and Kevin’s thoughts come to a halt as the front door is sprung open by Jean, instantly cutting his train of thought short and pulling his attention towards him. He’s not alone, but Kevin knew he wouldn’t be — for all of their gruffiness, Jean and Yonah make quite the pair wherever they go, and Kevin is only partially jealous of it. He supposes it’s only fair with the amount of time he spends with River that she gets to take Jean for herself every once in a while, but Kevin is, still, always surprised when he is reminded of their friendship.

“Kevin,” Jean acknowledges with a half-smile, kicking off his shoes and coat before settling a heavy-looking grocery bag on top of their dinner table. “We’re having ratatouille for dinner.”

From behind him and with thrice the amount of grocery bags Jean was carrying, Yonah huffs. “Whatever happened to equal rights?” she complains in a pant, settling the grocery bags just beside Jean’s. “The elevator is all fucked up, I had to carry _all_ of these bags through the _staircase_ and he didn’t offer help even _once._ In fact, he _sprinted_ in front of me so I wouldn’t be able to ask for help.”

“I didn’t sprint,” Jean easily corrects her, pulling out ingredients from the grocery bag with the same concentrated look on his eyes he has for practice, tonguing at the corners of his lips in annoyance. “You are just short.”

“No, _you_ are abnormally tall like a sasquatch,” Yonah replies, beelining for the couch and kicking Kevin’s legs to the side so she could sit near the end. Against all common sense, Kevin rests his legs over her lap after she settles, earning himself nothing but a glare. “I hope you know that your limbs are too long for your torso and there is nothing you can do about it. You’ll live with the knowledge that you look like an enderman forever.”

“A what now?” Jean hums distractedly, having clearly not paid attention to half of her words. 

Yonah huffs again, this time in irritation. She flicks Kevin’s ankle in retaliation, as if an attack against him would be equivalent to an attack against Jean. “Why did you do that?” Kevin complains, kicking up blindly. 

“You’re tall too. You deserve it by assimilation.”

“Untrue and ignorant. Some of the worst people in History were short but you do not see me taking it out on you.”

“Hey,” she raises her eyebrow, pointing a finger in Kevin’s direction. “Shut your mouth. I have had it up to here with the both of your smart asses today.”

Kevin rolls his eyes. “You have had it up here with everyone. You don’t like people.”

“No, I like all of my teammates,” Yonah replies, half-truth and half-tease, “just not you, in specific. Do you hear that, Kevin? Just not _you_ in specific.”

“Because I’m tall?”

“Because you are tall.”

He chuckles, pushing up on his hands to be face to face with her. “And yet you will eat dinner in my house today. Hypocritical, much?”

For someone with such awful relationships with team captains before, Kevin likes Yonah a lot — and only half of it is due to her Exy career. She rolls her eyes, bringing a hand to flick the tip of Kevin’s nose. “Free food is the only reason why I’m still here,” Yonah answers, truthful to the last strand of her hair. “If you think your superstar status means anything to me, it doesn’t. You’re annoying.”

Kevin finds himself more amused than anything. “So I’m a superstar to you?”

She flicks his nose once more before shoving his legs off of her lap, a pointed glare to her eyes. “I’ll bench you for the entire season, Day, don’t test me,” Yonah threatens; as empty as can be. Kevin knows he’s essential to their lineup. “I’m still your captain.”

“And because you are my captain, you know I’m an essential player.”

Yonah squints at him, but doesn’t say anything else. She stalks over to where Jean is still inspecting every ingredient with the thoroughness of a chef, and Kevin falls back onto the sofa with a smile this time. Friendship, too, is slowly becoming a less foreign concept — that’s one thing to be happy about, Kevin thinks. 

For whatever it’s worth, he hopes commitment — the healthy version of it, willing and on purpose, out of love instead of coercion — becomes more familiar, too. If only if for his, Andrew’s and Neil’s sake.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Andrew and Neil arrive on the early morning of that very Saturday.

Except that early morning is a generous description, given they had Kevin jumping out of bed in fear of loud bangs on his door at the unusual time of four in the morning, the Charleston sky so violently dark Kevin had to turn on all of the lights on his way to the door. That is, after having a quick stop at the kitchen for a safety-measures knife, in case the person banging on his door — unannounced, something no self respecting friend of Kevin’s would ever do — did not have good intentions to their knocking.

Okay, yes: Kevin is paranoid. That is not news to anyone. Somehow, as he stands frozen in front of Andrew and Neil — across his doorway like apparitions, twin pairs of purple eye bags under their eyes — with a kitchen knife weakly clutched on his hand, Kevin thinks he should’ve known. He should’ve seen this coming. He’s got himself involved with the only two men in the entire world whose regard for time was as little as for any other social convention, and he pays the price now. 

Andrew quirks an eyebrow in his direction. “You do not know how to handle knives.”

Kevin lets out a shaky breath. It’s enough to have Andrew reaching out a hand to carefully unpeel Kevin’s fingers from the knife’s handle, taking it in his own hands as if he could tell just by the way Kevin held it that he did not know, after all, how to handle knives. Knowing Andrew, he probably could. 

Neil lets out a tired laugh. “You were going to poke someone’s eye out with that thing. What gives?”

He squints at them. “It’s _four in the morning._ I heard an unexpected banging on my door. What else was I supposed to do?”

“Call me,” Andrew replies, as if it’s obvious. “Or Neil. Or both.”

“I’m supposed to call the two of you before I call the police?”

Neil tips his head to the side. “Yes,” he answers, again, as if it’s obvious. 

Kevin closes his eyes briefly, pinching the bridge of his nose with a sigh. “I’m going to close this door.” He threatens, staring straight into their faces. “Have fun sleeping in the lobby.”

Andrew rolls his eyes, but places his foot on the doorway anyways, as if Kevin would ever make them sleep in the lobby. He would never; not even jokingly. 

Kevin huffs, stepping aside to give them access into the apartment. “Come in. It’s cold.” He crosses his arms, watching them do as they’re told. “Shoes off. Here, give me your bags.”

Neil happily gives Kevin his, and Andrew has to be glared into doing it after putting back the kitchen knife into place. For some reason, Kevin finds it endearing that he knows just where to put it, but soon enough smothers the feeling. “I’ll put them in my room,” he announces, tentative, “alright?”

“Alright,” Neil replies, already falling into Kevin’s couch as if he owned the place. From his side, Andrew perches himself up on the armrest, arms crossed. Kevin rolls his eyes before leaving to put their bags in his room. 

Maybe it’s a bad call, though: one look at his bed has Kevin missing it most ardently, every bone in his body aching with how much he missed it for the brief time he had to get up to open the door. Kevin hadn’t even been asleep for long — after stumbling home a few minutes after midnight, courtesy of grabbing a late dinner with Jean, the short time he’d been asleep for felt like a blink. As he makes his way back to the living room, he resists the urge to complain. 

Neil has fully taken up the couch by the time Kevin is back, starfishing over the cushions like a lazy cat, but Andrew hasn’t moved an inch aside from leaning against the wall, his legs falling to either sides of the armrest. 

In his sleep-addled state of mind, Kevin distantly reckons that Andrew has short legs. 

Huh. The more you learn. 

He mirrors Andrew’s crossed arms from his spot at the very end of the hallway, staring at their figures as if he had never seen them before. Neil notices the staring and opens his arms as an invitation, one that Kevin — weak man that he is — has never wanted to take more, but recognizes that if he does, he will not get up to get back to bed again. 

At last, he compromises with his wishes by letting out a long sigh and fitting himself on the edge of the couch, still sitting up but close enough that Neil can wrap arms around his torso easily, which he does as soon as Kevin is there. Almost automatically, Kevin’s hand disappears from his lap to card through Neil’s hair, an immediate instinct he doesn’t bother pushing away as he studies Andrew’s profile curiously. 

“You’re tired,” Kevin points out, almost redundant. “Why drive so late in the night? That’s dangerous. You could’ve crashed the car.”

Andrew flicks an unimpressed look his way. “I will never crash my car.”

Still petting Neil’s hair, Kevin shakes his head. “You don’t know that. Everyone thinks they won’t ever crash their car until they do.”

“He loves the car more than life itself,” Neil replies, his voice coming out muffled from the pillows and his arms squeezing around Kevin like he’s afraid he’ll disappear. “He’d never crash.”

Andrew makes a sound of agreement. Kevin rolls his eyes, leaning back across Neil’s stomach. “Doesn’t matter. You two are dead tired.” He pointedly stares at Andrew. “You couldn’t have waited until the morning?” 

He motions dismissively in Kevin’s direction. “I said Saturday. It is Saturday.”

“Hm,” Kevin hums, his will to argue with Andrew brutally dimmed by his urge to get back under his covers. Tugging at Neil’s hair delicately, he informs, “I’m going back to bed. The two of you, too, are going back to bed. I don’t know what awful sleep schedule you keep in Palmetto but I won’t allow it under my roof.” Andrew opens his mouth, probably to disagree, but Kevin cuts him off by saying, “No. You’ll go to bed. If you don’t sleep, that’s your problem, but you will be in bed. It’s four in the morning and you look like death.”

He closes his mouth, glaring in Kevin’s direction. “Where?” Andrew asks, clearly irritated but too tired to argue. 

“Where what?”

Neil huffs petulantly, tugging at Kevin’s sleeping sweater. “Where will we sleep, stupid?” 

“Oh,” Kevin hesitates, his hands briefly stilling on Neil’s hair before continuing with their petting, though now more thoughtful. Kevin hadn’t exactly promised them anything, granted, but he’s in a good enough mood to pend towards trying to, at least, accommodate them into his life in spite of his limitations. It is true that he had slept with both of them before, even if separately — it can’t be that it is so different when it’s the two of them at the same time. Surely. 

“Kevin?” Neil snaps his fingers in front of his face, pulling Kevin from his musings. “Answer the question.”

Kevin rolls his eyes, shoving his hands away. “With me, if you want to,” he hums, falling quiet once more; his voice daringly tender, almost soft. “I did say that I wanted to try.”

“Are you sure?” Andrew asks, studying Kevin’s every move with that same glint in his eyes he often finds in Neil’s — an unrelenting interest, like he’s a Math problem that needs to be solved. It occurs to him that Andrew and Neil never had struggled to understand him before. Kevin really has changed.

“I’m sure,” Kevin replies, scratching at the shortest parts of Neil’s hair. It’s more of a fidget than anything, he’ll admit, but Neil doesn’t seem to mind it much as he all but curls himself around Kevin’s back, resting his forehead against Kevin’s thigh. He knows Andrew needs more than just a confirmation to be fully convinced, so he continues: “It’s okay. I’ve talked about it with my therapist, and these last days have been good. Maybe I won’t be able to do it every night, but tonight I want to.”

Andrew mulls that over in his mind for a second, leaning his head against the wall. “You will tell us,” he starts, “if you need us to leave.”

“I will,” Kevin agrees easily. This is more for Andrew than it is for him — Andrew does not like taking anything that is not willingly offered. “And you will tell me, too, if you need me to leave.”

He scoffs in disdain, once again motinioning dismissively in Kevin’s direction. “You are as dangerous to me as a fruit fly.”

“You know it’s not always that rational.”

Andrew rolls his eyes. It’s heartwarming, in a way, that he is so sure that Kevin would never do him any harm — not only because it’s true, but because Kevin did have the chance before, and brutally refused to. It’s sorely earned trust: a big leap for the two of them, whose traumas often overlapped in unpleasant ways. “You,” Andrew starts, nonchalantly, “will be trapped in his hold, anyways. You would not be able to touch me if you tried.”

Kevin huffs a laugh at the same time that Neil’s arms tighten around him, as if on cue. “Yes,” he agrees, slicking Neil’s hair back gently. “But I like that. It’s comforting.”

“See, Andrew?” Neil chimes in. “I told you.”

“Gossiping about me a lot?” Kevin asks, poking Neil’s side. 

“As if,” Andrew dryly replies. “The obsession is nothing if not intense.”

“And,” Neil continues, “not just from my part.”

Kevin rolls his eyes. “This,” he starts, motioning vaguely between the three of them, “is nothing if not based on mutual obsession.”

“Then it is nothing,” Andrew easily points out, but Kevin doesn’t believe him — hasn’t believed him in a long time, because for everyone that doesn’t understand Andrew, Kevin does. 

“Lying is contagious, it seems,” Kevin hums, quirking a playful eyebrow in Andrew’s direction. He’d meant it when he said Andrew is the hardest person in the world to flirt with, which absolutely does not mean Kevin won’t try. The reaction — whether it is an unamused huff or a protest — is always amusing. “You’ve become fully delusional. Maybe the cigarettes rotted your brain, after all.”

“Only if the drinking rotted yours.”

“It did,” he agrees, “and you rotted the rest of it. We all have our addictions.”

From his spot at Kevin’s thigh, Neil muffles out a laugh so heartfelt Kevin couldn’t help but gently flick him on the back of his head to get him to shut up. He always sounds amused when Kevin attempts to flirt with Andrew, which is half the reason to do it in the first place. “You,” Andrew starts to correct, “are not an addiction. You are a filthy vice, which is different.”

“A filthy vice,” Kevin echoes, considering it. “It does have a ring to it. Care to explain the difference?”

“An addiction is something you can quit.”

“So is a vice.” Then, after a moment: “You, too, can quit me.”

Andrew rolls his eyes. “ _You_ are delusional if you think that will happen.”

Kevin hums in understanding, leaning near Andrew’s hip and tipping his head back just enough to stare up at him. “A kiss for your thoughts?” he asks, admittedly too cheeky for his usual endeavor. Still — it’s late, and Andrew never seems to mind.

His eyes flicker to Neil for a second, then back to Kevin: a question. Kevin hums, “It’s okay. He’s not looking. He’s barely awake.”

Muffled against Kevin’s sweatpants, Neil complains, “I’m awake.”

Kevin tugs at his hair lightly. “Barely.”

“Barely,” he softly agrees. It’s as much of a confirmation as anything else.

After a quick look of assessment towards Kevin — always checking, checking, checking, never wanting to take more than what Kevin wants to give —, Andrew leans down to hover his face over Kevin’s, looking down at him for once with how he’s now leaning against the armrest instead of sitting on it. “Well, this is familiar,” Kevin comments under his breath, flooded by memories of a hotel room and Andrew’s face hovering over his. 

It’s always a very pleasant sight. 

“Shut up,” Andrew’s reflex answer kicks in, though his eyes fall to Kevin’s mouth. “Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

He lowers his face until his lips softly mold with Kevin’s, and it’s been too long: it has always been too long, because any time without this is far too much. For a good moment Kevin just stands there, eyes closed and lips open, basking in Andrew’s very missed presence with his hands on Neil’s hair. And, okay, yeah — Kevin can tell _why_ he is so willing to give them everything, when being under their touch after going so long without it is enough to make his entire body light up with much needed strength. It is very much like being whole again after a long time walking around as a half, and Kevin finds himself lightheaded under the heady feeling.

“Get that stupid smile out of your face,” Andrew murmurs against his mouth, but he is too distracted to add any bite to it. Kevin counts it as a win. 

“I will,” he replies, brushing his lips against Andrew’s briefly before unwinding his head from under his to push himself up, Neil’s arms around his waist reluctantly falling away. “Sleep. Come on. It’s too late.”

Neither move. It’s worse than talking to the cat, because she is often more willing to listen to Kevin than they are. He points in their direction accusingly. “I swear to God I’ll send you two to sleep in the lobby.”

Neil stirs, cracking an eye open just to stare at him, completely unfazed. “Then who will hold you all night long?” he asks, voice slurred by sleep. From beside him, Andrew rolls his eyes, though Kevin knows the softened lines in them too well to think that he means it. 

“The cat,” Kevin answers, unmoved. “Jean, who is just next door. My comforter. The knowledge that I’m always right. My beautiful History diploma. The list is endless.”

The both of them scoff in disdain at the same time, and it is a good thing, really, that Neil pushes himself up to trail after Kevin in the hallway, because he would have sent them to sleep in the spare room otherwise, no remorse in sight at their — _in unison,_ even, perfectly harmonized — petulance. Neil reaches him easily, quick on his feet, and Andrew’s footsteps follow right after, though a lot slower. It’s how they usually walk in big gatherings, Kevin distantly realizes: Kevin first, because they inevitably need to keep both of their eyes on him, Neil second, because he is less prone to trouble if he’s stuck between Kevin and Andrew, and Andrew last, because he refuses to walk any faster than he has to and needs to watch their backs wherever they go.

A system — complementary, easy to follow, automatic. They were an airplane made up of not-partners: they hovered above the ground, and maybe even flew a little. Kevin, Andrew and Neil were an invention, surely, and not one of the good, working ones. 

The machinery of the three of them was still wonky, still making weird songs and glitching at the oddest of times, though for the life of them they couldn’t switch it for a newer model. It’s the same feeling of keeping an old model of a device long due for a change: if it’s not broken, just a bit foul, there is no need to fix it. Likewise, the technology of them was antiquate and perhaps even unusual, old not as in a charming vintage but as a gruff-sounding old car one keeps for sentimental value more than anything. 

It’s good, though: Kevin always had a knack for everything old and odd. They didn’t have to be a perfectly oiled up machine to work; they just had to get through the rough patches of the road and use a lot of tape to mend the broken parts, two things Kevin had recently learned he was very good at. 

He settles in bed first, watching them fly around the room like two stray cats jumping from corner to corner, and it’s a funny feeling he doesn’t prod at much, if only because watching them bicker their way into sleeping clothes is more interesting than analyzing the extent of his own commitment issues. He had gone out and bought the toothbrushes he said he would — black for Andrew, orange for Neil, red for Kevin, another pattern of theirs —, but there is no moment of shock or explanation for them: with the door sprung open, Kevin watches as they easily figure out whose toothbrush is whose, neither batting an eyelash at the space they took up in Kevin’s life. 

It is true that they are just toothbrushes, but they are also a quiet invitation; a beckoning to home; a small piece of belonging to keep. They say that Andrew and Neil have a place with him, which is — God forbid him from spewing this out loud —, in a way, Kevin’s own promise of a commitment he is still cradling towards day by day. It’s not yes, but he knows they can read it for the _soon_ that it is. Love is in these things more often than it is in big gestures (though Kevin loves those, still): toothbrushes, keys, meds, Andrew’s sleeping shirts tucked under Kevin’s and Neil’s baggy hoodies folded upon Kevin’s sweatpants. Belonging when it becomes a habit. 

Neil falls into bed behind him with a contented sigh, immediately wrapping arms around Kevin’s middle and bringing him impossibly closer to his side of the bed, a considerable space left for Andrew to do as he pleases. Kevin goes easily: their machinery does not only work but falls together perfectly, bodies fitting into each other like the hollow of Neil’s chest had been made for Kevin to press his back against. He lets Neil rearrange their position until his cheek is resting over Neil’s bicep, Neil’s other arm thrown over his waist and their legs tangled together firmly, as compact as two people can make themselves be. 

“Your arm is going to go numb,” Kevin murmurs, burrowing closer in spite of his own words.

He feels Neil shrug from behind him, fitting his chin on the curve where Kevin’s neck meets his shoulder. “It’s worth it,” he replies, nonchalant.

The nights have been getting colder and colder at December’s fast pace, the year dwindling down into a chilly end, and the warmth is well received. Kevin would usually use the cat for it, granted, but she’s developed a habit of sleeping by Jean’s windowsill now, which makes Neil’s arms around him even more fortunate. Kevin hums just so Neil knows that he’s heard it, but doesn’t say anything else, blinking at a fast pace to try and keep himself awake to see Andrew settling in. 

He does it the same way Kevin has seen him do at the hotel, except that now there is no wall for him to press his back against — Kevin’s bed is in the center of the room, a deliberate change in position when he started having Nest-related nightmares again — so Andrew makes do by pressing his back to the side of Kevin’s nightstand. Andrew lies on his side, face to face with the both of them, and his arms are crossed under the blankets. He looks stupid, and soft, and Kevin is happy that he exists.

“You can lock the door if you want,” Kevin whispers, trying to keep his eyes open, an almost impossible feat with how soothing Neil’s breaths come against his ear. “There’s no wall.”

Under the nightlight’s blue hue, Andrew looks pale like a ghost. “There is the nightstand,” he quietly replies, “and you are not the only one who has been doing well.”

Kevin hums. “Still. We can find something to put the bed against. Or maybe—” he yawns, “maybe bed curtains? What do you think?”

Neil makes a sound of agreement. “Bed curtains sound nice.”

Andrew scoffs, but he relaxes against the pillow anyways, considering it. “A canopy bed,” he eventually suggests, monotone if not for the way he is staring at the two of them intertwined, “or you can always sleep in the middle.”

 _Always._ Always is a long, long time. Kevin doesn’t comment on the word usage, but he is rather convinced that it had been a deliberate choice of words. Again, Neil makes a sound of agreement Kevin suspects is the hum of a man that is drunk with sleep, but just awake enough to be alert. “It’s a good arrangement,” he points out, squeezing his arms around Kevin for good measure. “It makes sense.”

It does make sense. “I like the middle,” Kevin concedes, blinking blearily. “It does make sense. In a way.”

Andrew huffs. “In a way.” 

There is enough space between them for neither to feel trapped, but after a brief moment of silence Andrew brings a hand to the front of Kevin’s sweater — a stupidly oversized thing Mrs. Luna got him when she accidentally switched Jean’s birthday for his, despite Kevin’s being in February and Jean’s in early October —, fisting the fabric firmly. Kevin blinks at him for a few moments before pointing out the obvious, “I’m not going to disappear in the middle of the night.”

He rolls his eyes. “I never know with you.”

“I won’t let him,” Neil replies, though it’s a lot more muffled now — distant, already drifting off. He doesn’t finish his sentence: Kevin feels it the moment Neil’s breaths even out against his skin, slowly falling into a rhythm, chest rising and falling against Kevin’s back. 

“You heard the man,” Kevin whispers, now mindful of the noise, “he won’t let me.”

“Neither will I,” Andrew’s voice falls quiet, too, merely above the whisper Kevin’s had become. “Sleep. Nothing will touch you so long as I am here.”

Kevin tries to roll his eyes, but they are too heavy. He settles for lousily pointing out, “I’m not scared, Andrew.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“You don’t have to protect me anymore. I’m safe.”

Andrew studies him for a long second, but it’s more soothing than anything: Kevin knows now that it’s not the same way Riko used to stare at him, but rather something warmer, more protective, definitely with better intentions. He stares because he likes having Kevin in his line of sight, likes seeing him and knowing he’s well, and he stops when Kevin asks him to. “You are naive,” Andrew drags out quietly, “if you think that has ever stopped me before.” 

Fair enough. Kevin hums in acknowledgement, bringing his hand up to gently rub against Andrew’s knuckles, a touch so light so delicate he knows it’s barely there. “Goodnight,” Kevin silently bids, letting his hand fall to bury it under his pillow. After a heartbeat of silence, Andrew curls his hand under Kevin’s pillow as well, neither touching. 

“Sleep,” Andrew repeats, and Kevin complies easily because he’s been wanting to, anyway, and nothing will touch him so long as Andrew is here.

His dreams are a mess of fleeting moments Kevin can't tell if are memories or not, but aren't in any way remarkably bad. He can vaguely make out the image of himself jerking awake and being immediately pulled back in by Neil's arms — or maybe Andrew's hand pushing back on his chest, lingering until his heartbeat slows down, but that might've been a dream —, shushed for a few hazy moments before promptly falling asleep once more. Kevin can't recall the dream that made him jerk awake when he slowly regains consciousness in the morning, but he can recall the rest.

For some reason, he'd dreamt about Thea; memories of Thea, both in the Nest and out of it. That's not unusual: Kevin thinks a lot of how things went down between the both of them, if only because he is at least a bit certain that they had made the right choice by falling apart so willingly, a quick self-destruct getaway before their problems became too much to bear. He'd never blame Thea for her inability to deal with his extensive list of traumas — she hadn't been his therapist first and his girlfriend second, and it just wasn't her job to fix Kevin, however much his mental health had intruded into their relationship. Thea herself had enough trauma to last her an entire lifetime of unpacking, and it would've been unfair of him to expect her to put him back together when the only person who could that was Kevin, and no one else.

It's the same way he wouldn't ask of Andrew and Neil to put him back together, even if Kevin knows they wouldn't bat an eyelash at the request: codependency is a fickle, sour little thing Kevin would never willingly indulge in now that he's clawed his way out of the Nest mentality. It wasn't fair — it is never fair — to push upon them a burden so heavy to carry, and maybe that is what they mean when they claim that Kevin disappears. He does, in a way, but only because Kevin always wants every drop of independence he can get, and that manifests itself in his recovery. 

He loved them very, very much, but Kevin wouldn't center his healing around them. It wasn't fair; it wasn't right; and if it cost them their not-relationship like it cost Kevin and Thea, there is nothing he can do about it. Kevin can't go through life healed wrong, like a crooked bone that mended too fast, just to keep existing in their arms and nowhere else. He refuses.

When Kevin opens his eyes, it's to the sound of quiet murmuring, one near his ear and another a bit farther away, though still close. He blinks continuously for a brief second, trying to adjust his eyes to the dark room, and the murmuring in his ear becomes a huffed laughter. 

"We were wondering for how long more you'd be asleep," Neil drags out in a whisper, the same laughter in his words. "Andrew already brushed his teeth, had breakfast and answered a call from Coach. You were dead asleep the entire time."

The Andrew in question is lazily lingering on his spot at the bed, blonde hair matted to one side and phone on his hand, a palm cupping the top of the screen so the brightness doesn't wake Kevin up. He peeks over the screen to find Kevin's eyes open, and quirks an unimpressed eyebrow his way, as if he hadn't been whispering with Neil this entire time.

Against all common sense, all Kevin does is grab Neil's hand and pull his arms around himself even tighter, pushing back against his chest for comfort. Andrew rolls his eyes, and points out, "It is past eleven. You really are not yourself anymore."

"Hrgh," is Kevin's unintelligible reply, and he has to cough out a few times before his voice comes out. "It's _Saturday,_ " he slurs out, Neil's hand coming so scratch against the top of his head. 

"I know what day it is," Andrew whispers back dryly, even if there is an amused flicker to his eyes as he takes in the two of them again. "Your roommate said he will be out for the day."

Kevin frowns, and Andrew's stupid thumb presses against it to smooth it over on instinct before pulling away. "Jean," he questions, as if he had any other roommate to be worried about.

Andrew's face is unimpressed. "Surely it is not the cat."

"She is not allowed outside," Kevin informs, lightly stirring. "She's an indoors cat."

"She yelled to be let in for half an hour," Neil hums. 

"Why didn't you let her in?" he asks, eventually giving up on trying to get up. 

Neil laughs. "Andrew did. I was busy."

"Busy," Andrew echoes, unimpressed. 

"You try moving without waking him up. I'd love to see it happen."

"I did."

"Because you're not in _my_ position."

"You," Andrew starts, "are losing your sneaky habits, Abram."

"Mhm," Neil agrees, "and you are losing yours."

Kevin, who zoned out of their conversation as soon as the bickering started, blinks blearily before computing that they, indeed, let the cat in. He pushes himself up briefly to scan around the room, and surely enough, his kitten is curled up between his feet and Andrew's, back turned to them. He reaches for her out of instinct, gathering her in his arms, and brings her to where they were, settling the ball she made of herself in front of Andrew's chest.

Andrew's gaze flickers from Kevin to the cat. Before he can say anything, Kevin demands as he settles back into Neil's chest, "Don't be rude. She's just a kitten."

From behind him, Neil bursts into laughter. Andrew glares at him over Kevin's shoulder. "It is not like you," he starts, staring at the cat as if he's never seen one before, "to have a pet."

"How come if I have one?"

"It did not use to be."

"Now it is," Kevin corrects him, scratching at the top of her head. "You must not limit yourself."

Andrew rolls his eyes, but maybe he's been changing, too, because he carefully places a hand over her fur, patting just awkwardly enough for Kevin to know that he's never had a pet before. "This is stupid," he announces, but doesn't take his hand away.

"Mhmm," Kevin agrees, kicking off the covers now that the heat of three bodies in his bed got to him. He adjusts himself against the headboard, stretching out his back, and easily pulls Neil to lie between his legs, his head resting against Kevin's right thigh. It’s the perfect position for Andrew-watching, and Neil seems to take his opportunities gratefully.

When he starts petting at Neil's hair absentmindedly, Andrew offers them a funny look. "Will you die if you are not touching each other, I wonder?" he asks in the same caustic tone of always, though the corner of his mouth — traitorous, surely — quirks upward just enough for Kevin to know that he's fighting back an amused smirk. 

Neil wraps his arms around Kevin's thigh, holding it like one does a pillow. "It is very nice, if you want the other leg."

Kevin laughs. Andrew squints at them from behind the cat, suspicious. "I will leave it to another day," he replies at last, after a brief moment Kevin doesn't want to acknowledge as of consideration.

"Another day," Kevin snorts, shaking his head ever so slightly. He reaches over Andrew's head to grasp for the remote, snatching it from where he buried it in his first drawer under random papers and most of his medicine. 

He doesn't really watch television a lot, and especially not in bed — _it's bad for you_ , he argues with himself often, _it makes you sleep less_ —, but he knows Andrew does, so it's an easy choice. Kevin switches through channels mindlessly, more focused on running his hands through Neil's hair than paying attention to the TV, and Andrew ends up impatiently stealing the remote from him to choose a channel himself. Andrew settles it on a TV show he doesn't know and that, frankly, looks rather stupid, but it's enough to grab both his attention and Neil's, so Kevin lets it slide.

Andrew adjusts himself against the headboard as well, his arm brushing against Kevin's and the cat draped over his ankles. After a brief moment, Andrew tentatively leans against Kevin's side, nothing more than the dig of his shoulder against Kevin's arm, and he lets Andrew adjust himself as he pleases. One of his hands slips over to rest against Neil's shoulder, his wrist touching Kevin's thigh, and they are an intertwined mess of touching: an airplane, really, and maybe this time they can do more than just wonkily hover above the ground. Maybe this time every piece will fit together well, and every engine will work like it's supposed to.

Kevin isn't sure for how long they linger in bed, the soft murmur of the television keeping him awake, but he leaves once Neil starts to doze off once more, face buried in the pliant skin of his thigh. It's both encouragement for him to get out of bed and for Kevin to not skip breakfast — Perris often tells him it's better to avoid skipping any meals even if he's not all that hungry, since one time can easily carret into two, three, four, five… —, which is his reasoning for when Neil complains about his abrupt loss of a pillow. 

He doesn't expect Andrew to follow them into the kitchen, but he does. He sits by the middle of the table and watches as Kevin drowsily settles three mugs of coffee in front of him, made almost automatically: black for Neil, mixed with almond milk for Kevin, sugary with creamer for Andrew. A pattern, even in the mugs which are almost a color palette on their own, made up of red, black and orange. 

Neil sits across from Andrew, chin pillowed on his arms, and Kevin overhears their sleepy bickering as he stacks up pineapple slices on a plate, inevitably getting more than he'll eat because Neil is nothing if not a thief. He sits on the end of the table, right between them, and has barely time to eat himself before Neil starts the thieving. The predictability is — not so surprisingly — endearing. 

Kevin squints at him. "You could just ask for a plate of your own. I would have gotten it for you."

"Unnecessary," Neil replies, half a slice of pineapple on his mouth. "You won't eat all of that alone."

"I," he starts, but eventually gives up. "Close your mouth when you're chewing."

Neil rolls his eyes. "Who even eats pineapples in the morning, anyways?"

"You. And me. They're my favorite fruit."

"I know that. It's still weird."

"It's not."

"It is."

"It's not."

"It is."

Sighing, Kevin hooks a finger on the hem of his shirt and pulls him close to press a kiss to his mouth. "Eat your food and shut the fuck up."

Neil blinks at him, surprised, and Andrew's following huff is barely a choked down laugh. They think it's entirely too funny when the other is flustered by something Kevin does, he came to notice, and it's about as silly as they get. Kevin pulls away, leaning back on his chair, and Neil follows for another kiss before fully returning to the pineapples. "You know," he starts after some time, "if you just did that while you were training me, we would have had a hell of a better time."

Kevin offers him an unimpressed stare. "If I pointed out that you wanted to kiss me so bad in the middle of an argument you would have stomped out of the court, gear and all."

From behind his mug of coffee, Andrew hums in agreement. Neil rolls his eyes. "Maybe," he evades, "but that would be because it's true."

"Good to know. Be quiet now."

"You're an asshole."

"Shut up. You want to kiss me."

"I," Neil starts, stammering. "Yes, but you're still an asshole."

"It is like watching two particularly stupid animals perform a mating ritual," Andrew points out, absolutely deadpan. "If you are not shoving each other's tongues down your throats, you are arguing like middle schoolers."

"Untrue," Kevin disagrees in the same tone, "there are also the times where we are cuddling."

"What he said," Neil complements, taking half of the pineapple Kevin had just sliced. "And you're one to talk. As if we don't have the exact same dynamic minus the cuddling."

"Have you considered that you are just unpleasant to be around?"

"Yes, Andrew, and so are you, which is why we are so perfect for each other."

Kevin laughs through his mug, an echoed sound, and life is better than he ever expected it to be. This — is better than Kevin ever expected it to be.

He wasn't stupid: he knew Andrew and Neil had a dynamic of their own that Kevin was not included in, the same way he had a dynamic with each of them that the other had nothing to do with. It was pleasant, though, and Kevin found it endearing to watch — the reason they worked so well together was because Neil always met Andrew halfway, never letting him have the last word, and Andrew loved the challenge. It was a race to love, with them, always a competition where winning was just the same as losing, and Kevin found that he understood it better than he thought he would.

It comes back to this: he always understands them better than he thinks he does. Kevin would never have been second place to them because there were no ranks: that sort of thing couldn't exist in a not-relationship with three people. They were equals, a triade of twin values, and there would be no point in standing at three if they weren't. Kevin is not a possessive person — not a jealous one, either —, but even if he was, that feeling would not have any place in such a relationship. It'd be unjust to be jealous of them when they are never jealous of the other with Kevin. 

A good arrangement, he thinks as he stirs his coffee absentmindedly. There is little to no space for something as trivially intoxicating as insecurity to exist, and, anyways, it's not like they would let him wallow in such feelings either way — both are good at abruptly stopping the anxious train of thought that makes up Kevin's mind more often than not. 

After breakfast, Kevin lingers by the kitchen to call Jean while Andrew and Neil settle on the couch, lazy to their cores. It takes Jean a few rings to pick up, but when he does, it's with a laugh. "I thought you would be busy by now?" Jean says in lieu of a hello.

Kevin huffs. "Where are you? You didn't tell me you were going out yesterday."

"I'm at the mall," he easily replies, "and then I'll go to Yonah's, later. I imagined you would want some privacy."

"But this is your house, too," Kevin frowns.

"Trust me," Jean starts, a muffled sound of people chattering around him, "I do not want to know what you do with them. I'm happy for you, but I don't want to know."

"You're just going to disappear for the entire week?"

Jean makes a noncommittal sound from his side of the line. "I like the alone time. And you're being dramatic, anyways, because I will be back on dinnertime. Is Chinese okay or do your dwarves have anything against it?"

Kevin blinks. "They like it."

"Good. Same thing as always for you?"

"Jean—"

"The question, Kevin. Answer."

He sighs. "Yes, the same as always for me. Fried rice for Neil, lemon chicken for Andrew."

"How sweet," Jean dryly says, "you know their orders."

"As I know yours. And River's. And Robin's. And my dad's. And—"

"Okay, Kevin, you proved your point. I'll see you tonight." Then, a pause, his voice evening out into a soft tone: "Alright?"

"Alright," Kevin replies. He doesn't want to take up too much of Jean's life, anyways. "I'll see you. Text me if you need anything."

"Will do," is what Jean says before terminating the call.

Kevin finishes washing the dishes if only to have something to do with his hands before returning to the living room, finding them huddled together on the corner of the couch, Neil's elbow resting against Andrew's shoulder as they continue to watch whatever show they were watching earlier in the bedroom. Kevin grabs himself a blanket from his bed before joining them on the couch, wiggling and squirming until his head is on Neil's lap, his hands falling to pet at Kevin's hair like usual. After a brief moment, he feels tugging on his hair, and looks up to meet Andrew's hand pairing over his head in question.

Kevin huffs, "Yes," and it lowers until it's also running through his hair, though Andrew's version of it is just messing up whatever careful brushing Neil had been doing to the jet black strands. Both hands on his hair are soothing, anyways, so Kevin allows it to happen, the petting almost systematic: Neil untying knots and slicking the hair back just so Andrew's hands can mess it up once more, his nails scratching at the shorter strands at the back of his head and coming up to tug at the longer ones in the front after a while.

He thrives under the attention, if he has to be honest. It's casual, surely — they're barely even looking at him as they continue to discuss whatever they think is going to happen in the next episode (Kevin is starting to realize this show is about a zombie apocalypse, or the end of the world, or something of those sorts. He’s grasping at straws with the little information about it he got from listening in to their conversation) —, but it's also familiar; automatic; dare he say domestic. He buries a sigh in the material of Neil's sweatpants and closes his eyes for a few minutes, tuning in to their voices and their hands.

After hearing an incredibly controversial take Kevin is sure Neil did _not_ have the complete scope of information to make, he cracks one eye open curiously. "What is this show even about?" he asks. 

Andrew rolls a piece of Kevin’s hair around his finger before tugging at it lightly, more to be annoying than anything else. "Zombies," he replies, deadpan.

"That is so boring."

Neil's hand drops to flick his forehead before going back to Kevin's hair. "You wouldn't know. You haven't paid attention to a second of it."

"I entertain myself perfectly fine," Kevin hums. "And zombies are a childish take for how America is going to end, anyways. It’s adolescent at best."

Andrew raises an eyebrow, his hands stilling. "And what is your take on it, then?"

Kevin rolls his eyes. "Biological warfare combined with nuclear weapons,” he starts, “the U.S will start it by trying to implant a puppet government in a militarized country." Kevin turns on his back, and their hands follow the movement, settling on his hair again afterwards. "They'll lock the borders because people will be trying to run to Canada and Mexico. We'll become a fascist regime because of the authoritarian wave of new political leaders who will be pro-rationing supplies until the war is averted, and a Civil War is going to break out when the population learns that the richest don't have to ration their supplies."

"That's," Neil hesitates, "you thought about this a lot before, didn't you?"

"Of course," he replies. "It's how the world works."

Andrew hums in thought. "We would escape to Canada before they locked the borders." Then, he prompts: "What would be going on there?"

Kevin huffs, but complies with an answer: "They'll stay neutral to the war, but won't accept refugees from either side. We'd have to go illegally, and you would have to pick up French so we could pass off as natives. That is, if the biological war isn't focused on infecting humans with some incurable disease — if it is, we wouldn't be able to get out of the country. We'd be in lockdown."

Neil scoffs. "I'd get us out."

"What else would the disease be focused on infecting," Andrew asks, "if not humans?"

Kevin shrugs. "Calf. Chickens. Pigs. All animals you can eat or extract anything from. It would ruin our economy."

"Assuming we would not already be on an economic ban."

He hesitates. "It depends. The country we'd be in war with would have to be as big of a potency — or even bigger — than the United States to successfully apply an economic ban on us, unless it's an alliance. If it's an alliance, it would inevitably carret into World War Three."

Neil taps his fingers against the root of Kevin's hair thoughtfully. "We'd have to leave the country in small groups. Nicky would be able to return to Germany because of Erik, and maybe you could get us into Ireland if you claimed Kayleigh's ancestry." He mulls it over in his head for a while. "You would take Coach and Jean, and Andrew would take Aaron, because neither of you are leaving them behind. I'd try and convince Robin to come with us but she wouldn't let go of her parents. Allison would fly Renee, Matt and Dan out of the country with her parents' connections."

Andrew makes a sound of agreement. "Kevin is a celebrity. If we turned into a dystopian society, he would have minor privileges we could take advantage of."

"Assuming it's not a homophobic dystopia," Kevin points out.

He motions dismissively, tugging at Kevin's hair for him to listen. "Only if we turn into a strictly catholic state, but as late capitalism progresses we will eventually let go of religion and morals altogether. The only way we would become a homophobic dystopia would be if the war caused fertility levels low enough for gay couples to be banned under the law."

Kevin blinks. This is the most he's heard Andrew say in one breath since he got off his medication, years ago. It's only fitting that _this,_ of all things, is the topic. 

"The law never needed a reason to ban gay couples before," Neil observes. "Any conservative government would do it."

"Not at the peak of liberal capitalism. Profit would surpass moral."

"What exactly is profitable about a gay couple?"

"The people in it. It would be allowed if they upheld governamental values and were of higher castes."

Kevin frowns in his direction. "That wouldn't work for us, either. I'm not white and systematic racial oppression is essential for capitalism to work. I'd inevitably be put on a lower caste."

That makes Andrew stop and think for a while. "That is true," he reluctantly agrees, scratching at the top of Kevin's head in thought almost unconsciously. "It would cancel out your celebrity privileges. We would have to flee the country all the same."

Neil huffs, reaching behind Andrew for the remote. "Let's end this conversation," he announces, turning the television on once again. "There is no apocalypse happening any time soon."

"You don't know that," Kevin points out. 

"I know that," is what Neil immediately answers, tapping against Kevin's nose irritably. "And even if there was, it's not like anyone is going to touch you, so maybe stop being paranoid."

"Again, I would inevitably be put in a lower caste for being—"

" _Because_ I won't let it happen," Neil interrupts him mid-answer. "You would be safe and sound in Ireland before you could even say apocalypse."

Kevin bumps his head against their hands like a cat asking for scratches. "You two really do think you can single handedly protect me from everything."

"Yes," Andrew replies, unfazed.

"Betsy knows about that God complex of yours?"

"Yes."

He rolls his eyes, cuddling up to Neil's lap and giving up on arguing with Andrew altogether. In the end, it doesn’t matter what Kevin thinks: unless they are practically convinced otherwise, they will not change their minds. No point in trying to argue with men whose lives are based on stone-cold apathy and unwavering certainty. 

This time Kevin pays a little of attention to the show — is it a marathon? How is it possible that it’s the same show for the entire morning? — and decides it is fairly entertaining, but not nearly enough to grab his attention. It makes sense that Andrew likes to watch this, ever the man who watches horror movies for the sole purpose of criticizing them, with all its gory details and terrible SFX makeup, but Kevin quietly wonders what about it is so fun to Neil. 

He watches exactly twenty minutes of an episode before giving up and dozing off, lulled by the company. It’s okay for the first few moments, his eyes heavy and his head hazy, but he’d forgotten about the intricate detail of horror media: like clockwork, Kevin jerks awake startled at the sound of a distant scream coming from the screen, strident and filled with fear. 

The hands on his hair fall away immediately, and above him, Neil tenses up. “Kevin?” he calls, tentative.

Kevin blinks for one, two, three seconds, focusing on slowing down his heartbeat. It’s the _television,_ he tells himself. The _television,_ and not — it doesn’t even matter what it could be, because it’s just the television. He takes a deep breath, raking his own hands through his hair and face to feel the perfectly healthy skin underneath his palms, and falls back into Neil’s lap with a brief sigh. “I dozed off,” he clarifies at their curious stares. “I got startled.”

Andrew stares down at him with that assessing gaze of his before ever so slowly bringing his hand back into place, as if touching a stray animal that would run away if put under too much pressure. Neil’s hands take a lot longer to return to his hair, and Kevin feels inevitably bad about the scare he’d given him by jerking up so violently, though there is nothing he can do now except press an apologetic kiss to his knee and hope it’s enough.

Later on, when they’re sitting by the kitchen counter cutting up vegetables for lunch, Neil squints at him in thought, and Kevin knows he hasn’t given up on the topic of the apocalypse yet. “You know,” he starts, eyes slightly red from the onions they had just sliced for Andrew — the only one doing any cooking at all — to throw in a pan. “If you couldn't get into Ireland, you could go back to France with Jean. He’s here on a green card, isn’t he?”

Kevin puts down his kitchen knife in thought. “I wouldn’t get citizenship unless we married.”

“I’m not a fan of the idea of you marrying another man, either, but think of the extreme circumstances.”

He rolls his eyes. “I thought we were done with this subject.”

“I was just thinking.”

“It’s never good when you do that.”

Neil huffs. “It’s a fair hypothetical.”

There is a sound of sizzling before there is Andrew’s voice boredly asking, “Are you still talking about this?”

“Neil wants to marry me off to another man,” Kevin replies, earning himself a punch on the arm and a glare from the Neil in question.

Andrew leans against the counter, considering. “If Exy ever stopped serving you as a life purpose, you could live off of marrying old men on the brink of death and inheriting their money.”

He blinks at Andrew in disbelief. “There are only so many times that could work.”

“Hence why you should choose men that are obscenely wealthy.”

To Kevin’s horror, Neil hums in agreement. “He will never give up on Exy, but that could be a life plan. He marries them, they die, we take the money and move out of the country.”

“That,” Kevin starts, “is an awful plan. And why would it have to be me, in the first place?”

Neil scoffs as if it’s obvious. “Andrew would murder any old man that tried to touch him without his permission, and I have quite the background, if you could say that. You would be the perfect criminal for this.”

Kevin returns to his chopped vegetables as if nothing had been said. “And I am once again,” he hums, “done with this conversation.”

There is a quiet sound of laughter before they let the conversation diffuse in the air once more, the easy way in which their plans are always made for three sticking in Kevin’s head for the rest of the day. 

Three is a good number. Three is not just the number of Andrew’s jersey, but also the one Jean had on his when he first met Kevin. Three is the number of toothbrushes on the bathroom; the number of shoes at the door; the number of kisses Kevin drops on Neil’s shoulder when they linger in the bedroom after lunch; the number of pillows on his bed; the number of everything that matters. Kevin doesn’t like the lonely implications of number one and fiercely hates being number two — three is, in the end, just perfect. There is no haunt to three. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) the beginning of the end! i will see you on december 20th for the next and final chapter of the name of the game. have a good day until then! :^) i'm dayurno on tumblr in case you have anything to say <3


	10. for you i'd buy anything: pt. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to b honest i treasure the kevin x wymack relationship more than i treasure my own father
> 
> tw mentions of sexual harrassment

Kevin wants to tell himself that him, Andrew and Neil are interesting people who choose to do interesting things, but the truth is that he has to argue his way into going out for a movie after dinner, far before Jean arrived with Chinese takeout and a funny look on his face that told Kevin he was expecting everything but the way they were sitting in the dinner table around Kevin’s laptop trying to choose one single movie the three of them could tolerate watching. It wouldn’t be so hard if Andrew did not like so many movies that were — self-admittedly — bad and if Kevin did not have the attention span of a five year old to anything non-Exy related. In the end, they make Neil choose and it’s a compromise from both sides, because the movie Neil picks is inherently awful but fair enough in the sense that they both hate it. 

It’s a date, though. Kevin is just a bit dizzy by the thought — like a fifteen year old again, swooning at the idea of a _date_ — as he sits back on his bed and watches the mundanity of them getting ready, everything from Neil drying out his wet hair to Andrew pulling a black jacket over a (surprisingly) white shirt. He’s so distracted he’s barely ready himself, and the roles are switched when the two of them impatiently glare his way as he switches his sleeping sweater for another, slightly better-looking sweater, the only difference between them being the stupidly bright yellow color of the last. Kevin is only finishing buttoning up his jeans when he hears an unamused huff from the bed, and has to fight the urge to roll his eyes as he opens the bathroom door fully ready. 

He doesn’t make it past the _bedroom_ door, though, because Neil hooks his fingers on Kevin’s belt loops to firmly tug him between his legs and Kevin, easy as he is, goes more than willingly. Neil buries his face on the fabric of his sweater, right there Kevin’s stomach is, and Kevin’s hands fall to his shoulders mindlessly, kneading the muscle. From where he’s stirred on the bed with his phone on his hand and the cat on his side, Andrew rolls his eyes in their direction. 

“What’s up?” Kevin asks, tugging at Neil’s hair. “Preparing yourself for the psychological torture that will be watching one hour and a half of that movie?”

Against his stomach, Neil scoffs. “Tell me one time where we watched a movie and you didn’t fall asleep halfway.”

“Your movies are boring.”

“Everything is boring to you. You don’t consume media.”

“Documentaries are media.”

Neil noses along his abdomen, fingers still on his belt loops. “You are the only person in the world who watches more documentaries than movies.”

“Untrue,” Kevin disagrees, “Andrew watches more Animal Planet than anything else.”

Andrew flicks a gaze in their direction. “It is more entertaining than your nonsense.”

“It may be, but I’m not the one who will store all that animal knowledge in my brain forever.”

He rolls his eyes in Kevin’s direction. “If you had my memory you would use it to store useless knowledge.”

“No knowledge is useless,” Kevin replies, quirking an eyebrow. “Why are you on the bed? Your clothes are black. You’ll get full of cat fur.”

“You were taking too long.”

“I barely took ten minutes.”

“Too long.”

In spite of himself, Kevin leans forward, using Neil’s shoulders as a rest for his elbows. “You,” he starts, “want to kiss me so bad it makes you look stupid.”

Andrew barely moves. “And?”

Neil snorts against his stomach. Against all common sense, Kevin easily adjusts his knees on either side of Neil’s legs, straddling his lap and almost making the two of them topple over hadn’t it been for Neil’s sharp reflexes and Kevin’s ridiculous core strength. It’s not like this isn’t natural for them, though, and Neil’s hands automatically fall to his hips, face buried in Kevin’s neck.

Andrew stares at them with a new flicker of interest, raising an eyebrow towards Kevin, who has no choice but to look over Neil’s shoulder. “Shouldn’t it be the opposite?” he flatly asks, though his phone had been long discarded. 

Neil tips his head back to stare at him. “Why?”

“Yeah, why?” Kevin repeats, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips at Andrew’s visible annoyance. 

At last, Andrew kneels over next to them, his chest brushing against Neil’s back and his hand coming to grab at Kevin’s chin. Neil tips his head back once more to press a kiss to Andrew’s neck, earning himself a suppressed shiver and a glare, and Kevin laughs until Andrew firmly brings his face closer by the hold on his chin. 

“Yes or no?” he asks. 

Neil buries his face on Kevin’s neck once more, gently scratching at his lower back under the sweater, and Kevin takes stock of himself before answering. It’s quicker than he expects it to be: in a way quite uncharacteristic for the Kevin of the past two years, just being tucked between them is enough for him to feel safe, if even guarded, from the awful memories of when someone else in the room meant unwanted attention. This was _Neil_ under him — what ill-meaning thoughts could Neil even muster towards Kevin, with his gentle hands and soft prods?

In the end, it’s too easy. But Kevin doesn’t want to doubt every good thing that comes his way, and maybe just this once, it’s okay. Maybe this one time it won’t blow up on his face.

“Yes,” Kevin replies, and Andrew studies him for a moment before connecting their lips together. 

Kevin’s hands delicately scratch at Neil’s nape as Andrew deepens the kiss, and it’s an overwhelmingly good sensation — he wants to make a good comparison, something that can fully encompass the sudden burst of feelings that washes through him, but having the both of them so near and dear can only remind Kevin of his first time eating sweets out of the Nest with the knowledge that no one would violently berate him for it. It felt a lot like freedom, but not the brutal, all-knowing one Kevin often wishes; this one isn’t freedom _from,_ but freedom _to._ It’s like coming home to himself once more, and Kevin loves, loves, loves it. 

When Andrew pulls away he rests his chin over Neil’s shoulder, so close to Kevin’s face he could feel the breathless pants against his skin. Kevin holds onto Neil for dear life, and Neil doesn’t let him go — in fact, he brings him impossibly closer, the three of them slotting together in the easy, certain way that thread finds fabric through the needle. 

It’s Neil who speaks up first, and his tone is only half-joke when he points out, “Well, that was hot.”

Kevin bursts into happy laughter, burying it on Neil’s shoulder, and Andrew huffs in amusement, his forehead resting against Kevin’s. “You are enjoying this entirely too much.”

“I’m obsessed, to be honest,” Neil replies, and the starstruck edge to his voice is so… Sweet. Kevin feels like a teenager all over again — talk about corny. Neil sighs in content, leaning against Andrew’s chest and inevitably bringing Kevin with him, then says, “I really do want this. For as long as I can have it.”

Andrew’s eyes flicker to Kevin’s, and he realizes this is his decision to make: he is the one who will decide for how long they can have it, if they can even have it at all. _I love you_ is too little of a feeling, too easy to say and misunderstand: _I’m yours_ is harder; heavier; loftier and impossible to bend. Kevin still can’t quite say it, granted, but this — this is the first time he thinks he just might, one day, and much sooner than he’d expect. This is the first time he wants to say it and feels that he can without the words burning his throat.

In the end, he settles for the next best thing: 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Kevin promises quietly, reaching over Neil’s shoulder to press a kiss to Andrew’s cheek, then another, another, and another when Andrew doesn’t pull away. “You can have this.”

Neil trails soft presses of his mouth down Kevin’s throat. “We might want to get going before I start saying rude things.”

Andrew huffs in amusement once more, unwinding himself from Neil’s back. It’s miscalculated, though — Neil had been leaning most of his weight against Andrew’s chest, and without him to lean on he easily falls back-first into the bed, barely bothering to cushion his fall with his elbows as Kevin grabs his shoulders to steady himself. The position is even more incriminating now, with Kevin straddling his hips while he is lying down, and Neil seems to find it funny as he looks up at Kevin, pointing out, “Not that I’m not enjoying this, but now is the time you get off of me before the rude things start to come out.” 

Kevin rolls his eyes, but it’s true that he’s never gotten away from someone so quickly before. For all that it’s worth, he really does want to have a movie date ( _Pathetic,_ a voice in his head teases, _you are twenty-two years old. Act like it)_ and he does not wish for his plans to be ruined because of Neil’s smart mouth. He swears on his life he sees a smile forming on Andrew’s lips before Andrew leaves the room, but decides to not push the already frail thread of his sanity any further as he follows after him, Neil in his tow. 

Once they’re in the parking lot, it occurs to Kevin how long has it been since he last rode in the Maserati. Months apart from now, and then never again — little things that slip away easily under mundane moments, memories once familiar turned into foreign concepts. It’s more of a random observation than a bittersweet reminder, but it’s impossible to mull it over when Neil all but shoves him in the passenger seat, slamming the door after Kevin with a smile. 

Andrew is unimpressed as he slides into the driver’s seat. Neil slots himself between their arms as he climbs onto the backseat, elbow resting against Kevin’s shoulder. When sent a curious glance, he clarifies, “It’s a lovely view from back here. I insist you take the passenger seat from now on.”

“You’re insufferable.”

Andrew sighs, longsuffering, as he starts the car. “He will go on about this for months.”

“Years,” Neil corrects him. “You look good together.”

“You are obsessive.” 

“That is not news to anyone, Andrew.”

Kevin leans his head against the window. “It is news to me.”

Cutting through the dark streets, Andrew offers him a brief glance from the driver’s seat. He does look ridiculously good, but that’s mostly usual. “That,” Andrew starts, “is because you are an idiot.”

“Yes,” Kevin calmly agrees, because he knew that already. “That is beside the point.”

“What point, pray tell?”

He bites down on a smile. “Neil’s point that we look good together.”

Neil’s following sound is definitely amused. “He’ll deny forever, but he knows the truth. I know that he does.”

“Not all that you think is a truth,” is Andrew’s calm reply, “as I am sure you know.”

“Would you rather I take a picture and let you decide it for yourself?”

“That’s so inappropriate.” Kevin shakes his head. 

“And self-indulgent. You would frame the picture.”

Neil claps in fake glee. “I’d make it my screensaver in every device I own.”

“You,” Kevin starts, turning around on his seat with a finger pointed in Neil’s direction, “are so awful.”

"Get used to it," is Andrew's dry advice. "He will not change."

Neil snorts, and there they go again — back and forth with surprising precision, a tango of barely concealed flirting Kevin makes no move to participate in, and rather sits back to listen to the rough drag of Andrew's voice and the faux-cheery edge of Neil's. They're odd people even in that sense: since neither had Kevin's all-encompassing wish for touch, all of their battles were more psychological than anything. They tire each other out until one of them breaks and takes the first step, which is unusual, but not even close to upsetting. If anything, Kevin is well amused. 

When they park, Andrew turns around on his seat to drag Neil by the collar for a kiss, and it's — well. It's something. 

Kevin has never seen them kiss before — neither being the type to willingly show public affection —, and it's a battle of wills that makes him lock in his seat: in one hand, he knew it would happen eventually, given the three person not-relationship they are in. In another, Kevin is deeply terrorized by the subconscious fear of being an unwanted watcher; anything alike to what Riko had once been; the elephant in the room whose only purpose was making everyone else uncomfortable.

They didn't _look_ uncomfortable, but Kevin was always checking for signs: he could not afford — with his frail psyche — to be even slightly akin to Riko, a fear so deeply rooted within Kevin he has to remind himself that the reason Riko hated him so much in the first place was because he and Kevin were nothing alike. _Plus_ , he argues with the voice in his head — Andrew would never allow this if he was uncomfortable with it. Andrew guards his space viciously, and Neil has no problem in tearing through people when he feels the need to. Neither would ever put themselves in this situation if they did not want it, especially not for anyone's sake.

 _This,_ Kevin points out systematically, a clinical assessment of the situation for his mind to compute, _is consensual. You are not there because they have no other choice — you are there because they want you to be._

Well — didn't Riko use that excuse, too?

_No. Consent never meant anything to Riko. You know that._

_Riko was a liar. You are not a liar._

_You could never say no, you could only say yes, yes, yes, yes—_

Enough. 

Kevin blinks forcefully before leaning back against his seat, pending his head towards them without really having the intention to do anything but categorize and compare their behaviors. No tense shoulders; no stuttering hands; no scared look sent his way; no fear. Never fear. They looked happy — comfortable — and completely familiar, hands and mouths moving together in perfect harmony, and Kevin lets himself, at last, finally relax. 

Neil's hand curls around the back of his seat, his finger dragging up and down Kevin's nape in a quiet caress, and it feels like reassurance even though Neil has no idea what goes through Kevin's mind. Andrew's free hand — the one not holding Neil’s face in place — tentatively brushes against his knee, which is also reassurance, and Kevin hums something that might be one of his own, just so they can know that he is alright, after all, and that this battle is one that he can only fight alone.

After they pull away, Andrew turns to him with a mildly quirked eyebrow, leaning closer to ask, "Yes or no?"

Kevin leans closer too, redirecting his face to brush his lips against Andrew's temple, before pulling away with a soft-sounding, "No. Not yet," which is — in essence — a promise that could only be self-fulfilled. Watching is one thing, being watched is another, and Kevin can't deal with the latter just because he talked himself out of a panic attack caused by the former.

Andrew nods almost immediately, his expression unwavering, and Neil gently tugs at a hair in Kevin's nape before climbing out of the backseat. He is about to do the same when he realizes Andrew still hasn't moved yet, frozen in his spot, and it occurs to Kevin that Neil had gotten out of the car first not because he wanted them to follow, but because he thought they needed to have that conversation — any conversation — alone. A silent understanding; unspoken knowledge.

It gets them most of the time, the world in the aftermaths of abuse. For a moment, they sit in silence, quietly considering. 

"I said no," Kevin gently prompts, at last, looking back at Andrew. "Like I promised I would."

Andrew presses his lips together, red and swollen from Neil's kiss. "You said not yet," he corrects. 

"Which is still no," he points out quietly. 

"No," Andrew turns to look at him, a sober look in his eyes, "it is an uncertain no. No does not have to mean _not yet._ It can also mean _not ever_."

"I know, Andrew." Kevin adjusts himself to be facing Andrew, leaning the back of his head against the window. "But we are three. It is bound to happen, eventually."

"It will never happen if it is a no from you."

"You," he stammers, "don't know that."

Andrew flickers a cool look his way. "I know that," he emphasizes, something Kevin has heard him say a million times before. "You are a person who exists in this— this. A no from you is a _no._ Point blank and simple."

Kevin purses his lips. "I believe you. But you know it's not that easy." 

"Kevin," his tone is mildly warning as he utters, "I will not ask. You do not owe me an explanation. But you were visibly uncomfortable for a long time.”

Kevin crosses his arms, but it feels rather childish — as if he's shielding himself from the reality of his own words. "I know I was, and I solved it myself. This is not something you can fix, no matter how much I’d like if it was. Trust me, at least, when I tell you I have myself under control and don’t need a reminder of how to say no.”

"I will remind you nonetheless," Andrew replies, set in stone, "I will remind you every day if I have to."

"You already do," Kevin observes. "You remind me every day. You act like it."

And he knows Andrew won't say it — he knows Andrew won't ever ask _is it enough?_ —, but it's like Kevin hears it from him anyway, hidden in the long sigh that he draws out. "It is enough," he quietly not-replies to Andrew's not-question. "For me, it is. But there is only so much you can fix."

Andrew stares at him, unmoved. "You keep saying that," he grits out.

"I will say it for as long as it takes you to believe it," Kevin promptly answers. "So at least you aren't the only loser repeating things every day."

He sighs out again, a heavy sound, and rakes a hand through his hair before commanding, "Go take a walk around the mall with Neil."

"Okay," he easily agrees. Kevin lingers a hand on the door handle for a little while before calling, "Andrew?"

"What."

Kevin leans closer, pushing his weight on his hand and gently beckoning Andrew with the other. "Come here, if you want. I'll kiss your face."

Andrew stills on the driver's seat, the tell-tale of his surprise, and studies Kevin for a moment so long he thought they would just sit there and look at each other for the rest of the night. Slowly, so slowly, Andrew leans close enough to be face-to-face with Kevin, an unspoken invitation Kevin knows he wouldn't be able to say out loud if asked to.

It's okay: for everyone that doesn't understand Andrew, Kevin does. There is a reason why they haven't burned and crashed to the ground yet in spite of the circumstances.

He doesn't cup Andrew's face or leans a hand on his jaw like he would do to Neil — guesses the attention would be unwanted or overwhelming —, so he musters all of the fondness he can find in himself to press kisses from Andrew's forehead to his cheeks, nothing but the ghost of lips. Kevin closes his eyes in respect for whatever feeling might be going through Andrew's face, and quietly points out, "The way I see it, you do what you can, and what you can is enough. Leave the rest up to me and trust that I know my limits."

Andrew's still as a rock, frozen like a man in a snow globe, and Kevin continues to press soft kisses all over his cheeks, patiently waiting for Andrew to sort out how he feels. The skin of his face is pliant, pale to the lips, nothing alike to the harsh edges Kevin knows are hiding under Andrew's all-black clothing, but it doesn't stop him from dragging his lips from Andrew's forehead to the tip of his nose, quiet promises Kevin can't outwardly say. 

"Go," is what Andrew eventually says, his voice strained and cutting through the silence, only the sound of kisses being heard from the cocooned universe they had made of the Maserati. "Go. You are awful and I have had enough of your petting."

In spite of himself, Kevin laughs. He presses one last kiss to the corner of Andrew's mouth before pulling away, slipping out of the passenger seat with the ease of someone who's done this a thousand times before. He meets up with Neil a few moments later, and they circle around the mall like awestruck children — _have you ever seen that store before? How do you even pronounce that? Oh, that shirt is awful —_ until Andrew appears to drag them to the movies. 

The movie is awful. The movie is entirely awful — from start to end, so bad Kevin can't even fall asleep halfway out of curiosity for how this trainwreck will go down, something he is so embarrassed about he later finds himself shifting the blame of his new-found taste in bad movies to Andrew, in spite of his complete lack of responsibility on the matter. 

Kevin suspects it’s maybe not the movie in itself, but the company: after an hour and a half of sitting in the dark, stealing the popcorn he had stubbornly insisted that he did not want and taking discreet sips from Andrew’s milkshake (too sugary; Kevin only sipped on it so many times because he found himself constantly forgetting what it was, the dark of the room making it look like coffee), Kevin found that he did not really care for the movies as much as he enjoyed the thought of a date, with all the romantic implications of the word. 

The ride home is less awful. Andrew and Neil argue about the movie for the entire ride, the former driving and the latter lazily stirred on the passenger seat, giving out enthusiastic opinions that, in essence, mean very little if anything at all. Kevin has no input to give but is not allowed to zone out as he has been assigned giving-Andrew-his-drink duty, which is really just keeping the milkshake on his left hand and holding it out when Andrew asks him for it, hands firm against the steering wheel. It feels so ridiculously right — fitting, even; automatic behaviors — that when Andrew leans his hand on the back of Kevin’s headrest to park the Maserati, Kevin’s mind blacks out on instinct and he lurches forward, staring at him until Andrew gruffly nods his agreement and Kevin places a loud kiss on his cheek, just because he was close enough to do it and because he could. 

That is something Kevin finds himself doing a lot more during the seven days of their stay: casual affection. Practices end on Wednesday of the same week, but on the three days where Kevin has to leave bed earlier than the other two, he leaves behind their respective mugs of coffee with notes indicating which time he’d be back ( _Really?_ Jean had scoffed the first time he saw Kevin doing it, _is that what you’re doing now?_ ) based on his training schedule of the day. During practice, he swiftly maneuvers himself around questions regarding his supposed good mood and easier-than-usual smile, which earns Kevin one too many smiles back, something he is a little bit too pleased about later on.

The affection does not extend only to when they cannot directly react to it, though — Kevin finds himself plopping down on Neil’s lap in the couch more often than not, dropping quick, chaste kisses on Andrew’s head or face, dragging them to bed earlier to more or less force them into a better sleeping schedule, giving them honest glimpses into his domestic life. One night before bed Kevin even attempts at detangling the knots on Neil’s hair, if only because it’d been too messy from too many hands carding through it, and it’s just... _Easy._ Neil sits between his legs obediently and allows Kevint to detangle his hair knot by knot, careful hands working brushing cream onto the loose curls and massaging his scalp apologetically after taking care of a few particularly bothersome knots. 

Easy: a word Kevin thinks about when Neil leans back against his chest, shoulders relaxed as he lets Kevin do as he pleases with his hair. It was almost like being trusted by a skittish stray cat, in a way, a type of honor you take with pride — Neil, who had once been so adamant on never showing a crack of vulnerability, trusted him; wanted him; loved him. Did not just accept Kevin’s touch but craved it, found it soothing, knew it could never do him any harm. It occurred to Kevin that he hadn’t just inherited his mother’s raging passion, but also his father’s ability to take in strays and love them anew. 

He has a similar feeling the next afternoon, before taking the elevator with Andrew (back from a drugstore run — turns out Neil is allergic to tomatoes, after all, and it isn’t a common experience to feel your face itching and burning after you have them) and inevitably bumping into Mrs. Luna in the lobby. It goes as well as one would imagine: Kevin and her chat away while Andrew maintains his mouth closed all the way to their level, only sending a look her way when she reaches a hand to touch his arm and Kevin easily intersects it by redirecting it to his own arm instead, the first instinct being protecting Andrew’s personal space. It’s so natural he barely realized he’d done it until they are into the apartment again, and Andrew gives him a funny look that is followed by a kiss which tastes a lot like _thank you_. 

It is physical, but it’s not based solely on lust as Kevin had previously imagined it to be — Andrew and Neil did not treat him like an indulgence, a craving to satisfy and then let go of, but as a part of their routine they could not go without, something closer to coffee in the morning or tea before bed. Kevin does not quite know how to deal with it, yet, but he does not stop allowing them to do it either: between early morning kisses and casual holding in the night, he finds himself moving lazily through life in a way he had never before, indulging a lot more than he usually would. 

It occurs to Kevin more than once that, if Neil asked to have more again, he would say yes. The problem is that he does not know if he’ll ask again, and, likewise, Kevin is as fearful of rejection as he’d always been. 

On Friday night, after having argued about where to have dinner for half an hour before deciding on ordering takeout, Kevin settles between Neil’s legs in bed, his back glued to Neil’s chest as he leaned his head back to rest against his shoulder, Neil’s arms loosely wrapped around his waist. It is by no means an unusual position — Neil’s knee is bent ever so slightly, swinging side to side as he vaguely gesticulated something Kevin was honest to God not paying attention to, if only because it felt so casually domestic to just fold into Neil’s chest Kevin had found himself wondering what he would do when he eventually left again to Palmetto.

“And, anyways, I don’t think he knew what he was talking about but—” Neil stops midway when he notices Kevin’s eyes on him. “Staring. You didn’t hear a word I said.”

Andrew is in the shower. The steam coming from the small gap between the door and the floor smells like a type of safety Kevin can’t quite name, and would not dare to call cozy; homey; though it was anyways. “I was thinking,” he replies, “and I think I’ll go back to Palmetto with you to stay a few days at my dad’s. Maybe spend Christmas there.”

Neil quirks an eyebrow at him, pressing a kiss to Kevin’s hairline. “There won’t be a withdrawal, then. Or a lessened one, at least. “

“A withdrawal?”

“For when we have to leave.”

Kevin rolls his eyes. “You’re not an addiction.”

He flicks Kevin’s forehead. “No, you are. You should come with us to Columbia on Christmas break.”

“But—” he hesitates. “The others will know.”

Neil taps at his waist in thought. “I forgot about that,” is his quiet reply. “I don’t want to pretend that you’re not part of us in front of them.”

Kevin thinks this would be a good moment to say _you don’t have to,_ but his words fail him. This isn’t something he can make sense of with his hands — not something he can fix by touching Neil — and he’d never been good at talking, which is why people always had Riko do it for him in the first place. 

Regrettably, he swallows down everything else he wants to say to point out, “You’re a good pretender.”

“Not when it comes to you.”

“Yes,” Kevin agrees, because there is no point in lying, “you are bad at lying to me.”

Neil’s expression evens out, his tone falling low. “I don’t want to push you away,” he admits, at last, “but I don’t know what to do with— This. I can’t have what I want but,” he stammers, “neither can you.”

It’s an answer he’d expected from Neil — who was always vocal about his confusion in regards to their not-relationship — so all Kevin does is hum in acknowledgment, not wanting Neil to confuse his inability to compromise as a rejection. “Maybe it would be easier if you explained how you felt to me,” Kevin quietly observes, circling his hand around Neil’s wrist to caress the inside of it with his thumb. “It would take the burden off your shoulders.”

He sighs, but doesn’t slam a door on Kevin’s extended olive branch. “You’re not mine,” Neil starts, burying his hand under Kevin’s shirt and lightly scratching at his stomach. “But we do these things. I _understand_ just hooking up, but not even Andrew and I were like this when we weren’t a thing. Nothing about you makes sense. And I just—” he buries his nose in Kevin’s hair. “I really don’t want anybody else with you like this. I never thought I was jealous before this started.”

“You weren't,” Kevin disagrees, a clinical observation. “Andrew never gave you a reason to be.”

“You already told me there is no one else, and I believe you. So _why_ ,” he complains, “does it still bother me?”

Kevin presses a kiss to his jawline before replying, “Because you can’t not have this. You don’t understand why I’m not yours.”

Neil tangles a hand in his hair, tugging gently. “Look at me,” he asks, and Kevin does, tipping his head back to stare into his face. “Then _be mine,_ Kevin. Just be mine. Give it up for once.” He tucks a stray hair against Kevin’s ear. “I promise you it’s not that bad.”

“Neil,” he starts: a soft, quiet sound leaving his mouth that can barely be recognized as Neil’s name. Kevin studies him for a moment, the blue of his eyes, for once cloudy enough for Kevin to see their future reflected in them. This is a trainwreck waiting to happen — but it’s also one worth fighting for. Kevin sighs in defeat. “Ask me properly. Not now. Think about it. Then ask again.”

His hand falls from Kevin's hair. “ _Kevin._ ”

“Not now,” Kevin insists, “I need you to think about it. Then you will ask me again. Properly.”

“Define properly.”

At this point Kevin wants to say whatever, if only to end this conversation before Neil asks him to be his again — “With flowers,” he bullshits. “Or a megaphone in the pouring rain. Or something. I don’t know.”

Neil quirks an eyebrow that’s more amused than anything. “You want Andrew to bring you flowers.”

“I did not say Andrew’s name. I said _you._ ”

“He comes implied.”

“Yes, but this is not something I’d ask of him. It is, though, something I’d ask of you.”

To his surprise, Neil lets out a soft chuckle that gets buried in Kevin’s hair. “I didn’t know what I was expecting,” he eventually murmurs. “Of course Kevin Day would want the best of the best. Everything to you has to be an event.”

Kevin shrugs, snuggling against Neil’s shoulder and closing his eyes. “It’s a small price to pay for the amount of times I kiss that sailor mouth of yours a day.”

“You don’t seem to mind it.”

“Mhmm,” he hums. 

“Plus, you licked it so it’s yours.”

“I’ll make you sleep on the cat’s bed.”

Neil lets out another laugh and pulls Kevin impossibly closer to press a kiss to the top of his head. “So mean to me when I’m the one who holds you all night long.”

“You just lost cat’s bed privilege. I’ll have you sleeping on the balcony while Andrew and I enjoy the bed for ourselves.”

He buries an amused chuckle against the side of Kevin’s head before falling quiet.

When he presses his ear to Neil’s chest, later that night, the sound of his heartbeat is the only thing in the world that keeps Kevin’s demons at bay. It feels treacherously easy, but Kevin has slowly learned how to trust it. Sometimes things can just be easy.

Sometimes.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


No one ever knows what Kevin Day wants — and he will not tell, either, aside from the obvious —, but the list is rather short and simple, born from so many years of unwavering self-restraint when it comes to everything but Exy that it took him some time to, eventually, start letting himself want other things. 

He wants a collection of History-themed mugs — Sarah got him one, weeks ago, and he hasn’t stopped himself from buying three more — to stack on his kitchen until they don’t fit anymore. 

He wants, in the future, to get a dog that can learn to be friends with his cat so Kevin can take pictures of them together in embarrassingly sweet positions.

He wants a big house with a pool to swim on in the offseason, and another one in front of the beach for holidays and vacations.

He wants to recover from every single ill-intentioned lie Riko Moriyama put in his head.

He wants to learn how to like chocolate. 

Right now, though — he _wants_ to not have to leave for Palmetto in half an hour, because nothing bad ever comes from the way Andrew slots himself between his dangling legs, Kevin’s back leaning against the bathroom mirror and his entire body being held up by the counter as he stares down amusedly. 

“What,” Andrew starts, “are you doing on the counter?”

“I was calling the cat.”

“And yet it is I who found you.”

Kevin rolls his eyes, easily accommodating himself so that his legs weren’t locking Andrew into place. “You are here on your own volition.”

He tips his head to the side, a dry look on his eyes. “Clearly.” Andrew rests his hands on Kevin’s knees, warm palms heavy against the material of his jeans, and Kevin raises an eyebrow in his direction. “What.”

“We leave in half an hour.”

“And?”

Kevin drags his pointer finger down the back of Andrew’s hands delicately. “It’ll be different when I’m at my dad’s.”

Andrew blinks slowly. “Yes,” he agrees, carefully using his hands to rearrange Kevin’s legs around him, bringing him closer but not enough to be fully touching aside from where his knees met Andrew’s torso. “Will you tell him?”

“ _That_ ,” he chuckles under his breath, “would be an awkward conversation.”

“That is not an answer.”

“I’m thinking about it.” Kevin leans back on his hands, gently squeezing his legs around Andrew. “It would be awkward to you, too. He is your coach.” 

Andrew raises an unamused eyebrow. “He is your father, not mine.”

“Yes, Andrew, because that was something I did not know already. I was just shoving my tongue down your throat thinking that you might also be my father’s son.”

The look Andrew sends him is so inherently inconvenienced Kevin has to keep himself from bursting out in laughter, pushing closer to him on instinct. 

“I told Neil to ask me again,” Kevin gently prompts after a little while. “I’ll say yes when he does.”

There is a shift in Andrew’s face. Kevin can’t really tell what it means, given how shortly it takes to disappear, but his hands seem heavier than they were before as they establish a careful hold on his thigh, as if he was bracing himself. Andrew never grabs, nowadays; every touch is gentle.

“Which will mean?” Andrew asks, at last, a quiet question. 

“That I will—” he hesitates, then lets his palms drop on top of Andrew’s hands, slow enough for him to take them away if he wants to. When he doesn’t, it gives Kevin enough courage to say: “Be his. Yours. In a way. Which is not — how you want it to be, but it’s yours. If you still want me to be.”

Andrew purses his lips. There is a small beauty mark over his cupid’s bow, a pretty detail Kevin and Neil had bonded over finding it a nice place to kiss, and Kevin wants to swipe his thumb over it, though he doesn’t at the reasoning that Andrew might not want to be touched while having this conversation. 

“What changed?” is what he questions, eventually, studying Kevin’s face in that way of his that makes him feel as if he could never wash out Andrew’s fingertips from his skin. Not that he wanted to, anyways: he oftens thinks that he’d like them to be permanent golden tattoos; five small marks of passion to remind him that he is loved when he is close to forgetting. 

Kevin, for once, studies him back. He doesn't know how to explain to Andrew, in simple words, that he has come to a point in his life where he is so whole — flared up, infinite, made up of intricate delicacies that most of all were created from and to love —, so complete, that he no longer has to fear disappearing once he shares the parts of himself that are only there to be loved.

At last, Kevin quietly says, "There is enough of me now that I feel as if I can give you everything without giving myself away." He draws imaginary circles on the back of Andrew's hands. "I'm not saying I'm alright. Or even that I'll be alright. That's— too big of a promise. But I like you."

Andrew scoffs, but his face shifts again; small clues of light. Kevin thought it took a great amount of love to be so thoroughly relieved — delighted — by someone else's recovery. “You do not like anyone.”

“Untrue.” He leans forward, their faces close but not touching. “I like you."

The stare Andrew sends his way is unaffected, but Kevin knows him — he knows, as much as Andrew will always deny it, that the vocal reassurances comfort him just as much as the touches do to Kevin, and he wants to sweep Andrew off of his feet enough for him to admit it. 

“Shut up.”

“I’ve done everything and I’ve been everywhere, you know—”

“Shut _up,_ Kevin.”

“—But there is nothing else that I want, now, that is not you.”

His hands fall still on Kevin’s lap, but his next words are gritted out, “Shut up. Where can I—”

Kevin gingerly grabs him by the wrist, bringing his hands to his waist. Years of living in Andrew’s pocket taught him how to listen to him even in the silence, and he knows what ups the antes by now. Kevin lets his own hands fall to his side, burying them under his knees, and cranes down to remark, “Yes.”

Andrew’s next breath is strained against his mouth. Kevin eagerly waits for him to lean up, but after a brief moment, Andrew’s hands temporarily slip from his waist to bring Kevin’s to his hair, and he murmurs, “Just here.”

“Just here,” Kevin agrees, carding his hands through Andrew’s hair carefully, the blonde curls molding against his fingers. Andrew is very, very beautiful, though not at all delicate — regardless, Kevin can’t help but handle him gently, even if he knows Andrew would scoff at such a thought if he’d heard it. When he only stares at Kevin, the repetition comes easy: “Yes.”

It’s enough. Andrew pulls him down, Kevin delicately tips his head back by the hand on his hair, and they meet halfway. What he knows Andrew will never be able to say out loud is delivered, instead, with his fingertips and his mouth: in the way his kisses are not bruising like Kevin has seen them be with Neil, but gentle; delicate; dipped in the soft decadence of a lover who’s just now learning how to be kind. Andrew holds him in place firmly, trails his hands down Kevin’s sides, but does not grab, does not dig his nails in, does not bruise, and sometimes Kevin thinks that he knows — sometimes he thinks that Andrew just _knows_ what Kevin wants from him, without ever having to ask at all. 

Andrew is overwhelming and everywhere, filling up every one of his senses, but it’s not a violent taking — and, likewise, Kevin’s is not a submitted giving. How is he supposed to not want to lock this down? 

Kevin squeezes his legs around Andrew’s waist, trying to communicate the incommunicable, but Andrew seems to understand anyway. After some time, Andrew lightly pulls away to stare at Kevin’s face — green against hazel; a worthwhile storm to push through.

“You really are awful,” Andrew quietly points out, between a few, lazier kisses. 

He calmly scratches his nails against the side of Andrew’s head, unfazed by the harsh words. “Your hair is nice today,” Kevin observes, nonchalant, as if he hadn’t just told Andrew there is nothing else in the world that he wants but him, and Neil, and them. It’s not a big deal, though — Kevin is known for his brutal honesty, and in love he is no less honest. “Did you detangle it?”

“Shut up.”

“How rude.” Kevin leans closer to press a careful kiss to Andrew’s hairline. “Your sweater is nice, too. It smells good. I like black and white on you.”

“Kevin,” he grits out, “shut _up._ ”

“No.” He shakes his head fiercely. “Let me compliment you.”

“There is something awfully wrong with you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kevin dismissively agrees. “Some nerve I have to believe in Andrew Minyard of all people, whatever, I’ve heard it before. Why can’t _you_ shut up and take a compliment for once?”

“I am not interested in your flattering.”

But his hands are still on Kevin’s waist, and he is still standing between Kevin’s legs, and his head is still slightly tipped back to give Kevin his undivided attention, so maybe it’s safe to assume that Andrew is, in fact, interested in his flattering.

He doesn’t comment on it, though, because he knows what’s good for him. Kevin gently taps the tip of Andrew’s nose before humming, “As I was saying: I like the sweater. Have you ever considered wearing anything that’s not black?”

“No.”

“That’s a pity. I really like red. It would look good on you.”

“Red,” Andrew drags out, “is an awful color.”

“No, it’s not,” Kevin disagrees just as easily, “it’s nice. The color of passion. My favorite color.”

“It is the color of the Trojans, which is why it is your favorite color.”

Kevin huffs. “It’s also the color of your ears when it’s cold outside. Color of Neil’s hair, too. Nicky’s nails that time he painted them. What’s your point? A color can mean anything.”

“You are talking nonsense,” is Andrew’s reply, yet he reaches a hand to tuck a stray hair against Kevin’s ear, a small indication of care that could not be spoken out loud just yet. “Get down. It’s almost time to go.”

“Hm. But this is nice.” 

“I will leave without you.”

Kevin tips his head to the side. “Okay. I have my own car. What makes you think I depend on you for anything?” 

Andrew rolls his eyes, but he pulls Kevin down anyways, using the hands on his waist as clinically as possible before letting go completely. Kevin likes that, too — Andrew never tries to manhandle him, probably way too aware of how such rough treatment could be unwanted, and never assumes to have more permission than what’s explicitly given. It was almost refreshing, in a way, for a man so used to having his boundaries run over. 

He drops a kiss on the top of Andrew’s head as a thank you that gets promptly ignored and off they go, rushing Neil and their bags onto the Maserati after Kevin bids his goodbyes to Jean for the time being. This time Neil takes the passenger seat and Kevin finds himself curled against the car door on the backseat, chin pillowed on his arm as he stares out the window, Charleston disappearing into the wind as they push through endless road until reaching Palmetto three hours later. He doesn’t talk much during the trip, more interested in feeling the wind blow on his face, but Andrew and Neil do — small arguments here and there that are just to pass the time, familiar in their automatic responses. At some point, Neil shuts down Kevin’s window in the name of keeping him from catching a cold, which, in hindsight, made no sense: Kevin had been feeling the cold wind on his face and chest for the past hour, if he were to be sick there would be no changing of that anymore.

Either way, he must have looked specially cold when Andrew parked the Maserati in front of his father’s apartment complex, because one look at him is enough for Neil to roll his eyes and shrug off his scarf to wrap it around Kevin’s neck, a pointed look in his eyes that made it clear that he would bite Kevin’s hand off if the scarf wasn't still there at the end of the day.

"Aren't you going to say hello?" Kevin asks as Neil reaches from the passenger seat to wrap the scarf around his neck. "He's still your coach. How rude of you."

Neil tucks the loose end of his scarf inside the collar of Kevin's sweater. "And I am still banging his son, so I'll put out looking at him in the eye for as long as I can."

Kevin scoffs. "You can't be serious."

"I'm not," Neil's smile is sharp. "You two just need some alone time. I'll pick you up for dinner."

From the driver's seat, Andrew sends him a pointed look. "Such chivalry; as if your driving is not awful."

"Would you rather be the one to pick him up, then?" Neil doesn't turn around to reply as he continues to fuss with Kevin's scarf, but his smirk grows. "I drive perfectly fine."

"Seeing you try and be charming is akin to watching a pig take a shower."

Neil fondly rolls his eyes, leaning closer to press a quick kiss to Kevin's mouth. "No one is forcing you to watch," he points out as he pulls away, carding his hand through Kevin's hair one last time before leaning back into his seat. "I'll come around seven. Return my scarf or I’ll make you swallow it."

Kevin mumbles his agreement, reaching for the door handle, but Andrew locks the door before he can climb out of the backseat. "What?" he asks, impatient. 

Andrew barely takes his eyes out of the windshield as he replies, "Where are the good manners you boast so much about?"

"What are you talking ab— Ah," he blinks. Kevin reaches a hand to steady himself on the back of Andrew's headrest, pulling closer and sticking his head between them to slowly — carefully, really, so Andrew has the time to move away if needed — press a kiss to his cheek, at which Andrew promptly scoffs but does not pull away from. "I'll… See you soon?" Kevin unsurely says.

"Who raised you?" Andrew inquiries, rolling his eyes, though Kevin sees the tips of his ears slightly reddening as he pulls back. "I meant a _goodbye_ , not a kiss. You and your goddamn _petting_."

“You could’ve explained before I gave you the kiss.”

Andrew hums. “Where is the fun in that?”

“I’ll take it back.”

“How?” Neil prompts, the corner of his lips quirked upwards. 

Kevin hesitates for a second before grabbing the air beside Andrew’s cheek and pretending to throw it away. The look Andrew sends him is so unimpressed Kevin has to bite down on a smile of his own. “You really are ridiculous.”

“I took it back,” Kevin simply replies. 

“So cruel.”

“Shut _up_ , Andrew.”

“Get out,” Andrew easily demands, unlocking the back door. “Go give out kisses to strangers for all I care.”

This time Kevin doesn’t hold back his smile. “You are not nearly as okay with that idea as you pretend you are.”

“Get. Out.”

Kevin huffs a laugh, leaning to press another kiss to Andrew’s cheek before doing the same to Neil’s, more to be annoying than anything else. He doesn’t see their reactions as he climbs out of the backseat, a smile on his face and his bag slung over his shoulder, but Andrew doesn’t drive away until Kevin is already inside the apartment complex — he never does, actually; Kevin thinks it’s simultaneously sweet and a byproduct of Andrew’s excessive paranoia —, so maybe it wasn’t that bad, in the end. 

After ringing his presence, Kevin takes the elevator and easily finds himself in front of his father’s apartment door. In theory, he has keys and does not need to knock — in practice, Kevin knows there is no way David Wymack would hear his front door being unlocked from his office, which is why he rings the doorbell despite being constantly asked otherwise. 

It’s not his father that opens the door, though — it’s Abby, and her smile is so big Kevin has to blink a few times to fully compute it. “Kevin!” she exclaims, as if this was her first time seeing Kevin at all. “You’re here! We were worried you’d come too late. It’ll snow later, did you know?”

The corners of Kevin’s lips quirk up without his authorization. “There are barely any snowfalls in the upstate.”

She motions dismissively, urging Kevin inside the apartment and closing the door behind him. “It was in the _news,_ Kevin. I know you think you do, but you don’t know better than the news.” Abby turns to him with crossed arms, though her smile is unwavering. “Look at _you._ You look so healthy.”

“I’m always healthy,” Kevin replies matter-of-factly, but he knows what she means, and he agrees. “Where’s David?”

Abby rolls her eyes. “He told me I’m the one who lets you call him that. I told him you are a grown adult that doesn’t need permission to do anything.” Her face softens. “He’s in the office. Said he’d finish up some paperwork before you arrived.”

Kevin quirks an eyebrow. “Which means he’s been in there for hours already.”

“Yes,” she nods, wavy hair falling down her shoulders. It’s gotten longer since the last time Kevin saw her. “Get him out of there and lock the door behind him. He doesn’t seem to notice it’s the holidays.”

“When does he ever?” he hums, dropping his bag by the dinner table. “The Foxes are nothing if not a headache machine.”

“Which is why you are one,” Abby points out, not unkindly.

“Which is why I am one,” Kevin easily agrees. He moves to unwrap Neil’s scarf around his neck, but ultimately decides not to — less likely to lose it if he has it on himself until Neil comes around to pick him up. “Are the rookies giving you trouble, Abby? I’ll rough them up next practice to make them stop.”

She rolls her eyes again, though a lot more fondly. “You and your father are one and the same. They’re not causing any more trouble than you did back in the day.”

“I caused no problems.”

Abby pats his shoulder gently. “You and I both know that isn’t true.”

Fair enough. Kevin lets her hand linger on his shoulder for a little while before unwinding himself from her touch, announcing, “I’ll get him out of the cave. Keep the keys on hand.”

She laughs, but Kevin doesn’t stay long enough to hear her reply as he disappears into the hallway that leads to Wymack’s office, branching in three rooms: one for his father, a guest one that has basically become Kevin’s in the past years, and the bathroom. He doesn’t knock before entering — no reason to — and finds his father in the same way he’s always been: hunched over a stack of paperwork with reading glasses sitting awkwardly atop of his broad nose bridge, a mug of tea (not spiked anymore; Kevin made him promise) sitting dangerously near the edge of his desk. 

When he barely looks up at the sound of the door opening, presumably assuming it’s Abby, Kevin makes his presence known by pointing out, “The glasses make you look old.”

Wymack’s eyes snap up at the sound of Kevin’s voice, and Kevin tries not to find it endearing. “And that scarf makes you look ridiculous.”

“It’s because it’s not mine. It’s Neil’s.”

“Even worse. Kid’s got no fashion sense.”

Kevin hums in agreement, leaning against the edge of the table to curiously peek over Wymack’s paperwork, which he promptly hides from Kevin’s sight. “No work on the Holidays for you,” he remarks. “You know the rules.”

The _rules_ — something Wymack established the time Kevin got hospitalized to try and lessen his workload, thereby making it harder for Kevin to overwork himself into a hospital bed again. That feels like it happened an entire lifetime ago, granted, but it’s only been a few months, no matter how many things have changed since then. 

He scoffs. “Do you hear yourself when you talk?”

“Hey.” Wymack points a finger in his direction. “Lose the cheek. I already had one Kayleigh and I don’t need another.”

Kevin rolls his eyes. It’s easier, now, to talk about her — or at least for Wymack, who has made that comparison at least a hundred times before, it is. Kevin doesn’t know if he’ll ever be as open about it as his father seems willing to be, but he supposes baby steps are still part of recovery. “It’s a Day thing,” he replies, though he has no idea if it is. “Abby said you were worried I’d get stranded in the snow.”

His father inelegantly grunts. “Minyard has no regard for how time works.”

And _oh,_ doesn’t Kevin know that already. “They made me open the door for them at four in the morning.”

“Pains in the ass, the both of them,” Wymack grumbles, adjusting his glasses. He doesn’t wear them outside of the apartment — Kevin wonders if anyone from the team has seen them yet. “If they’re making your apartment their personal hotel, just kick them out. It’s what you do with freeloaders.”

Perhaps on reflex, Kevin lets out a quiet laugh. It makes his father look surprised, but the look is soon wiped from his face to give place to something more neutral, maybe even fond. “You’re lying. I know you called Andrew for updates on me,” Kevin accuses. “You could just call me instead, you know.”

Wymack scoffs. “So you can give me that ‘nothing new’ bullshit? At least Minyard goes straight to the point.”

“Which is?”

“If you’re planning or not to work yourself into an early grave.”

This time, it’s Kevin who scoffs. “And you’ll be right beside me.”

“How sweet. A family tomb,” is Wymack’s dry response, gruff in that particular brand of his that makes it seem like he hasn’t been keeping a heavy eye on Kevin ever since he got hospitalized. “Will you or will you not have dinner with the assholes, by the way? Abby was planning on making lasagna for dinner but I told her you might already have other plans.”

“Yes, I will,” Kevin replies. “Around seven.”

“Good. You tell Josten to have better manners and come greet me next time.”

Kevin huffs. “As if that would change anything. He’s an animal.”

Wymack motions vaguely, something that might look like agreement. “From Minyard I don’t expect anything, but you’d think Josten would have learned some decency in the past years.” He puts out the stack of paperwork he’d been reviewing in his nearest drawer, unfolding his reading glasses from his face. “I’ll burn these glasses one day.”

Kevin makes an offended sound, reaching to grab the glasses and put them out of his father’s reach. “Nuh-uh-uh. The doctor said you have to use them or else you’ll need glasses all the time. They aren’t going _anywhere._ ”

“I’m your father, not the opposite. You don’t tell me what to do.”

“ _Someone_ has to,” Kevin stresses, then adds: “David.”

Wymack groans. “Stop calling me David.”

“Stop acting like a child.”

“You’re such an asshole.”

He points a finger in Wymack’s direction, much like he’d done earlier. “Takes one to know one. If you burn these glasses I will make you chew on them.”

His father raises his hands up in defeat, a scowl on his face. “You’d assume that therapist of yours would make you work on your attitude. Glad to see it isn’t the case.”

“Again,” Kevin repeats, “takes one to know one. Your attitude is my attitude.”

“Don’t push that on me,” Wymack disagrees, stealing his glasses back from Kevin and also placing them on the paperwork drawer. “That is all your mom’s attitude. Always walking around telling other people what to do, always rolling your eyes. One day they’ll stay like that permanently, so don’t come crying to me when they do.”

As if on cue, Kevin rolls his eyes. “Are you done with your old man rant or do you need some more clouds to yell at?”

“Get the fuck out of my office, Kevin.”

“Not until you do.”

Wymack sighs, longsuffering, and pushes himself out of his chair. “Out. And I’m locking it until you go home, so don’t try to be sneaky and work when I’m not around.”

Kevin quirks an eyebrow. “Give the keys to Abby. If I’m not going, you’re not going either.”

“You’re _such_ an asshole.”

“The _keys,_ David.”

His father pinches the bridge of his nose, irritated, but bolts out of the room anyways, and Kevin has no choice but to follow. Wymack makes a show out of gruffly passing his keys to Abby, who looks more than happy to put them in her purse and tell them she’s going to put them in a safe, but in the end Kevin is just pleased that his father will be going through the same Exy ban that he’d been trying to put Kevin on since he got hospitalized. The bad habits they both share aren’t just Kevin’s problems, and nothing irritates him more than when Wymack tries to pretend that they are. 

Kevin had once thought that his relationship with Wymack would not hold up without beer and Exy, but he has since learned that it does not, in fact, need anything else to work. Even the bickering — which Kevin can admit may look ugly from an outsider’s perspective, but is just the way they are — can be subdued and they’d still be father and son, because at this point there is nothing to tell them that they aren’t. Kevin doesn’t know when they both started to learn how to exist within each other’s vicinity as family, but he likes to think the shift has been gradual and, hopefully, self-evident.

He’s sitting on the couch, shoes discarded and listening to Abby ramble about this documentary she’d been watching the night before, when Wymack shoves a plate of cheese and crackers on his hand gruffly. “Eat. I don’t trust Josten and Minyard to have made you eat lunch.”

They did, in fact, but Kevin doesn’t point that out. He takes the plate and places it on his lap, turning his attention back to Abby right after. There is no _thank you_ from Kevin — the same way that there is no _thank you_ from Wymack when Kevin sends him expensive chocolate bars and cigars (the only vice of his that Kevin has left alone) on his birthday.

So no, no thank yous. Both are too stubborn to say it, and they know, anyways, that it wouldn’t mean anything from the other. Kevin and Wymack are dangerously alike in more ways than one: in the end, it’s all a matter of trying to stop fighting the similarities and acknowledging the differences. 

When he finishes eating and Abby’s rant inevitably comes to a natural stop, Kevin goes to his bedroom to unpack some of the clothes he’d brought with him from Charleston. There are enough clothes of his own in this bedroom to last him an entire month, since Kevin is always getting sent new ones and could afford to leave an entire closet behind, but most of the ones he’d brought with him were more for comfort’s sake than anything else. Some he’d even admit are Andrew’s and Neil’s — mostly the ones that are entirely too big for either of them and they insist on keeping for the sake of proving a point against Kevin. They weren’t _stolen_ , though: they both saw him taking them, it’s only fair that he gets to keep the sweaters when they don’t even fit in the first place, and he’s sure his denim jacket went missing by the doing of one of them, anyways. A fair trade.

Kevin hadn’t meant to make it a romantic thing, and he does not see it like that, either. There is no way either will grow into those sweaters and Kevin just so happens to be going through a severe drought of winter clothes, which makes the oversized sweaters a fortunate solution to a pre-existing problem. If Andrew and Neil have a problem with it, Kevin truly, deeply, wholeheartedly does not care, and he will gladly argue his way out of this subject if it’s brought up. 

There are some photos loosely glued to the wall from when Kevin had moved in — unannounced, he’ll admit, and without asking first — with his father during the times he’d been fighting with Andrew. They’re mostly of his favorite historical monuments, though there are a few that are printed straight out of his mother’s Wikipedia page: her, her first team, her big smile (terrifyingly alike to Kevin’s; all squeaky and childish, crinkling up her nose and eyes just enough for her to look years younger) during one of the first televised Exy matches, on top of a few pictures of them in Ireland that Kevin cut up from old magazines. There is one of Wymack during his playing days, too, and a few others of random Irish streets Aaron had printed for him. Everything Kevin loved, mostly. 

The list of things he loves, which once was so small it could fit on the walls of this bedroom, had gotten too big ever since. Kevin doesn’t know how long he’d spend cutting up pictures and gluing them to the wall if he had a photograph for everything he loved now — the list would be so big Kevin would need to take up the entire room, and maybe even the hallway. There would be no space big enough for everything that made up Kevin’s world, and though it felt overwhelming to just consider it in that light, he found himself pleased by what changed and what stayed the same. It was good to be more than just one thing; it was good to have an entire world to look forward to. 

After unpacking and organizing ( _You’re neurotic,_ Wymack said as he watched Kevin arrange his clothes by color on the closet, which was not news to anyone), Kevin lingers around his bedroom for a little while before going out again to listen to some of Abby’s new vinyls she refuses to admit Wymack had gotten for her birthday. For some reason they are both adamant on pretending that they aren’t in a relationship in front of Kevin, and the parallels, he thought, would be funny if they weren’t so deeply mortifying. 

When he mentioned it to Perris, once, he’d replied that they could be pretending to not be in a relationship for his sake, probably afraid that Kevin would think that Abby is trying to replace what Kayleigh had once been. Kevin had told him the obvious — Abby and Kayleigh were nothing alike, because while the former was willing to put up with Wymack’s gruffiness and naturally took up a more pliant, subdued role, the latter deeply despised the idea of being committed to a man and would have gouged her eyes out before she considered being anyone’s wife.

So, yes: inherited aversion to commitment. From both parents. More often than not, Kevin thinks Kayleigh got it right, though he can’t help but wonder what she would think of him giving up so much of the freedom that she desperately clung to for Andrew and Neil, men he had a history of quarreling with in the first place.

Maybe she’d be disappointed. Kevin knows, for one, that the small voice in his head that belongs to her is disappointed, but he tends to ignore it to focus on voices that offer more useful advice.

“Listen to this one, Kevin,” Abby says, slotting the record on the player and lowering the needle manually. Kevin was the one who got them the vinyl player in the first place, for Abby’s last birthday, and since then she’d made a point out of buying classical music collections for him to listen to when he comes to visit. “Ah, isn’t it just lovely? I’m using it to study nowadays. Your father says he hates it but I’ve caught him bopping along to it twice.”

Kevin huffs. “Bopping along to classical music?”

“Music is music, asshole,” Wymack easily complains from the kitchen, where he’d been making them tea to pretend that he isn’t listening in to their conversation. Kevin suspects the amount of food Wymack had been making for him was a quiet incentive to eat better, and he finds it irresistibly endearing, though he would never say it out loud. 

“You’re not supposed to bop along to it,” Kevin replies, leaning back on his chair to get a glimpse of Wymack at the kitchen, “you’re supposed to quietly enjoy it.”

Mugs in hand, Wymack leans his hip against the kitchen doorway to send him an unimpressed stare. “I don’t take orders from pretentious bastards. Take your feet off that chair.”

Kevin rolls his eyes, but curls himself to rest his legs against the armrest instead. “You’re so grumpy today. Abby, how do you stand it?”

“How is today different from any other day?” she softly asks, a light, harmless tease. Kevin thought Abby’s brand of meanness was the sweetest in the world — the things she says were barely even considered rude, but she finds them to be the height of mischief all the same. 

Wymack gives them both their mugs as he makes his way to the couch, and looks thoroughly unamused by their ganging up. “When are the assholes coming to pick you up?” he asks, crossing his arms. 

“Seven,” Kevin hums, sipping on London Fog like a starved man. He’d tried remaking Wymack’s recipe back in Charleston, but it didn’t taste quite the same, and the results were mixed if anything. “Are you already this eager to get rid of me?”

“Brat,” his father replies, “the only reason you are not eager to get rid of yourself is because you are you.”

“Who says I’m not eager to get rid of myself? I’m sure I even tried earlier this year.”

Wymack throws a pillow in his direction, hitting Kevin’s head softly. “Shut up and drink your tea.”

Kevin hides his smile behind the rim of his mug. Perris tells him to stop making those jokes — a habit he picked up from River —, and though sometimes Kevin listens, sometimes he does not. Abby studies them for a little while with a fond look in her eyes before quietly prompting, “What are you doing for your birthday, Kevin?”

“That’s two months away,” Kevin points out, but when Abby doesn’t let up, he replies, “I don’t know. Going out, probably.”

“Should I be worried about the fact that you’re going out clubbing?” Wymack grumbles. “Don’t get anyone pregnant, or so help me God, Kevin, I’m locking you inside this house.”

Kevin rolls his eyes. “That’s unlikely to happen.”

“Good,” Abby hums, “David is too young to be a grandfather.”

It’s funny that it’s a concern at all, because Kevin’s romantic situation is a bit opposite to whatever they seem to think it is, but he doesn’t say anything. Wymack rolls down his sleeve to check his wrist watch, and announces: “It’s already seven. Go put on real clothes, for once.”

“I’m wearing sweatpants and a sweater.”

“And the ridiculous scarf. Take it off.”

Kevin wraps a protective hand around the loose end, long untucked from his collar. “No.”

His father sighs, longsuffering. He does that a lot when he’s around Kevin, but he knows all of Wymack’s secrets by now — a sigh is, very often, how he keeps himself from smiling. Reluctantly, Kevin moves from his (very comfortable) spot in the living room to change into jeans, because while Kevin Day does not care about many things, he does care about how he dresses and what he looks like, and he can’t be caught slipping even for a dinner out at Fox Perimeter. 

He’s midway through choosing a shirt that doesn’t look like Kevin has been lying around in all day when he hears the front door open and a handful of gruff greetings, but it’s not Neil that comes to stand at his bedroom’s doorway — it’s Andrew, his arms crossed and his face blank as he leans his shoulder on the door. 

Kevin turns to frown at him. “I thought Neil would be the one to pick me up.”

Andrew studies him for a second before scoffing in disdain, “He is busy trying to mediate a fight between the freshmen.” Closing the door behind him, Andrew reaches Kevin’s bed and sits on the other end, jutting his chin to stare at him. “Put your pyjamas back on, we’re getting takeout.”

He makes a noise of annoyance, more to himself than Andrew, and arranges the shirts he’d taken out into his color-coded closet again. As he does so, Kevin prompts, “What happened with the freshmen?”

“Someone stole someone’s girlfriend. I don’t care.” He leans back on his hands, watching Kevin fold shirts. “It was in front of our dorm. He had no choice.”

Kevin hums in acknowledgment. “Team dynamics,” he remarks, finishing up with the shirts and climbing beside Andrew on the bed, legs crossed and elbows resting on his knees. “Was it ugly?”

“Aren’t you a gossip.”

“I’m just asking to know what mood Neil will be in when we arrive.”

Andrew rolls his eyes. “If anything, he finds it funny. It is not as if he likes either of them.”

“He’s still their captain,” Kevin points out.

“They were being childish,” is Andrew’s reply, “and Abram is not their babysitter.”

Fair enough, he supposes. Neil is not concerned in their lives so long as it is not related to Exy.

Kevin rests his chin on his closed fist. “Are we going now or are you giving it some time to cool down?”

“They were making too much noise,” Andrew informs him. 

“Hm,” he hums, taking it at face level. That was something Kevin and Andrew always had in common — neither liked too much noise, and both would rather sit in silence more often than not. If Andrew wanted to wait out until the fight ended, Kevin is not the one to oppose him.

It is a bit boring, though, to have to sit and wait. Kevin studies his side profile quietly as Andrew stares away into nothing, from the soft swell of his nose to the always-disappointed curve of his upper lip. He likes Andrew’s face a lot, if only because it’s as contrary to his personality as anything else — Andrew is not just handsome, Kevin thinks, but pretty, too. His features weren’t well pronounced like Kevin’s full lips and dark eyebrows, or sharp like Neil’s chilling blue eyes and long nose: they were dandy, with a softly curved jawline and delicate bone structure. His cheeks, too; not sunken in, but rather round, sitting just under Andrew’s high cheekbones and making Kevin’s lips tingle with the urge to kiss them again. 

“There really isn't,” Andrew eventually says, “anything that interesting on my face.”

“Don’t make statements I disagree with just to turn around and complain when I disagree with them.”

“You are impossible.” Andrew tips his head back to stare at the ceiling, throat bared even though Kevin makes a point out of not looking at it. “Say what you want to say, Kevin.”

Kevin shrugs. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he remarks before quietly pointing out, “You’re really pretty. I don’t know if you’d rather that I call you handsome so I don’t fuck up your, you know, gender expression, but for whatever it’s worth, I think you’re both.”

This time the compliment doesn’t come as a surprise to Andrew, and he doesn’t still, either, which makes something warm unfurl in Kevin’s stomach. He barely even looks at Kevin as he echoes, “My gender expression.” 

“River taught me that,” Kevin hums. “You come across as someone who cares about being perceived as masculine.” Then, after a moment, he hesitates: “Well, it depends. I think you care about being perceived as authoritative, which is not the same thing as being masculine.”

“That River of yours is filling up your head with nonsense,” Andrew replies, still looking up at the ceiling, though he eventually adds, “And what do you come across as?”

Kevin thinks about it for a second. “I don’t really care,” he admits after a while. “I suppose I’m not a parading wagon of masculinity, but neither am I— well, I don’t think femininity is the opposite of masculinity, but I don’t think I come across as feminine either.” Kevin leans back on his hands, too, and concludes: “It doesn’t really matter. I just think you’re pretty. And handsome. You choose whatever you like best.”

“I like neither.”

“Well, how you feel is not my problem,” he easily points out. “I am not lying to you and saying you are ugly, if that is what you want from me.”

Andrew lets out a sigh. “I do not care,” he says, “about coming across as masculine.”

“So calling you pretty is okay?” When Andrew doesn’t reply, Kevin clarifies, “Pretty doesn’t _have_ to mean delicate. It’s not— subservient, either. In informal conversation, it’s normal to use the word pretty to refer to the grandeur of something.”

This time Andrew turns to look at him, head pending to the side and cheek resting over his own shoulder, and Kevin thinks, _pretty._ There is an indecipherable look in his eyes that Kevin doesn’t even try his hand at understanding; one he doesn’t reckon he ever saw on Andrew’s face before; but he says nothing.

At last, Andrew concedes, “Use whatever word you want.”

It makes Kevin half-smile. “Even as an endearment?” 

“Define endearment.”

“Like this,” he positions himself in front of Andrew, resting his chin on his closed fist once more. “Good morning, _pretty_. Are you well, pretty? Why did you not replace the ice you used in the fridge, pretty? That shot was really sloppy, pretty, I think you should work on your coordination more.”

Andrew’s features don’t twitch, but he prompts, “Pretty as opposed to?”

“Handsome, I suppose.” Kevin studies him for a moment before trying out: “Shoes off in my house, _handsome_. Stop hogging the blanket, handsome. Don’t feed my cat human food, handsome. Yes, handsome.”

“Shut up,” is Andrew’s immediate reply. Kevin opens his mouth to laugh, but Andrew does not seem to find it as funny — in fact, he turns to lean impossibly closer, his hands now on either side of Kevin’s knees and his arms almost caging him in place. “I hate the sound of both,” Andrew easily remarks as he stares straight into Kevin’s face, the hazel turning into feral yellow under the bedroom light, “I hated the sound of everything but yes.”

“You like the sound of yes,” Kevin observes, unbothered by the close proximity. “It’s a pity. I just find it so fun to tell you no.”

His actions betray his words, though, because he leans in anyways, nose gently knocking against Andrew’s. It’s true that Kevin likes telling him no — much like Andrew himself has said before that he finds it fun to tell Kevin no —, but he does not mean to make Andrew think he doesn’t _want_ him, because Kevin does. He just likes holding this over Andrew’s head for a little bit before he lets him have it. 

“Handsome,” he whispers quietly, “and pretty. You are both. And more.”

“And more,” Andrew whispers back, deadpan. “Oh, my.”

“And more,” Kevin agrees. “Attractive. Charming. Bewitching, even.”

“Shut _up._ ”

Kevin quirks an eyebrow. “Telling me to shut up won’t make you want to kiss me any less.”

Andrew hums in agreement. “But it cannot hurt.”

It’s almost funny, really, to see Andrew waiting for a yes — he tongues at the corner of his mouth in impatience and keeps darting his eyes to Kevin’s lips, visibly annoyed. It’s not a matter of him thinking that Kevin doesn’t want it, because Kevin is not pretending to not want it at all: he is simply holding it out a little bit for the sake of doing it, and Andrew knows that, which is what annoys him in the first place. Self-discipline is a virtue Kevin has mastered years ago, and one he thinks Andrew might profit from. 

In the end, Kevin huffs an amused laugh, and delicately redirects Andrew’s hand to his face before conceding, “ _Yes_ , Andrew.”

Verbal consent works like fire to gasoline: Andrew leans in, firmly holding Kevin’s jawline into place, and the weight of him pushes Kevin down to the bed easily, only Andrew’s elbow resting beside Kevin’s head to keep them from being chest-to-chest. He’s grateful for the distance Andrew puts between them, because, for one, Kevin is not the biggest fan of being crushed under Andrew’s hold.

And, anyways, his heart is beating so loud so quick he suspects Andrew would feel it if he just reached out and touched. 

“I,” Andrew punctuates between kisses, “hate you.”

Every empty lie Andrew tells makes Kevin find them even more amusing, but he doesn’t tell him that. “And I,” he replies, too, between kisses, “don’t believe you.” 

Kevin doesn’t even think Andrew believes himself when he says it, but that’s a concern for another time. Andrew uses the hand that is not holding him back from crushing Kevin with his weight to grab at Kevin’s left hand, redirecting it to his hair. When Kevin gently cards his fingers through it, Andrew uses the same hand to grab his face, fitting Kevin’s chin in the curve where his thumb meets his palm. It’s not a tight grip, he notices distantly — Kevin rewards Andrew for the gentleness by scratching lightly against his scalp, which, in return, earns himself a small sigh, barely there at all.

“All that to wait out a fight?” Kevin quietly asks, dragging his thumb up and down Andrew’s forehead in a careful caress. 

“I got derailed.”

He smiles. “Yeah, you did.” 

Kevin brings him down for another kiss, mouths pressing together easily. Kissing Andrew is so good he thinks he could make an art out of it — so good that if it was an olympic sport, Kevin would train every day to get gold — so good that his lips part on instinct — so good that it takes him a few second to compute the sound of the door springing open, and the abrupt reminder that he is not, indeed, in his own apartment. 

“Minyard, you have been in there for half an hour, I thought you said you would—” his father’s voice cuts out so quickly Kevin barely has the time to throw Andrew off of him, because the Andrew in question is already jumping away like a cat caught by surprise. From the doorway, Wymack’s hand lingers on the door handle for a second before he closes the door once more, the sound of it thundering through the apartment.

For a moment, it’s just the sound of their heavy breathing, Andrew having ended up in the far end of the bed while Kevin hadn’t moved at all, eyes wide and a hand pressed to his mouth in horror. The brief quietness ends when Wymack opens the door again, eyes pressed closed as if he did not want even a glimpse of what he had just interrupted. “Minyard,” he calls, surprisingly calm, “go wait in the living room. I’ll give him back to you in a minute.”

Seeing Andrew so thrown off would be funny if Kevin himself wasn't just as mortified as he was, and he — rather bitterly — watches as Andrew slowly moves out of the bed, looking every bit ruffled as he dunks under Wymack’s arm and leaves. His father closes the door behind Andrew and promptly presses his own back to it before opening his eyes again, warm brown of his that Kevin always looks away from, tonight being no exception.

Neither speak for a while, Kevin too horrified to do it and Wymack visibly uncomfortable by what he just accidentally walked in. At last, his father draws out, “At the very least you weren’t lying about not getting someone knocked up.”

But Kevin can’t find the voice to reply. He thinks his eyes might be popping out of their sockets by how wide they must be. Wymack quietly studies him for a moment before sighing out in annoyance, “Learn how to lock the _damn_ door, Kevin. There is a lock for a reason.”

“I—” Kevin stammers, at loss for words. 

“Don’t give me that face,” his father seriously demands, crossing his arms. Wymack looks torn between two equally hard decisions, and Kevin realizes, in horror, that he must be deciding between asking for details or leaving it alone. The former wins. “This... Is a new development.”

“You weren’t supposed to—” he fishes for words in his head, but finds none. “It’s— It’s nothing.”

But it’s not nothing, and his father isn’t stupid. “You,” Wymack starts, “must think I’m really fucking dumb if you want me to believe that Minyard means nothing to you. Think of a better lie.”

Kevin sighs, running a hand through his face. “It’s not— Nothing. But it’s not a _thing_ either. Not yet. And it’s not… _Just_ Andrew.”

Wymack’s face falls. “No.”

Apologetically, he corrects, “Yes.”

“Kevin, no.”

“...Yes.”

This time Wymack is the one who runs a hand through his face. He looks like Kevin had just started speaking in a completely different language, eyebrows furrowed in — not disappointment, but frustration. “Kevin,” he starts, “I don’t want them as my in-laws. I don’t want them.”

“They’re not your in-laws,” Kevin genuinely replies, “yet.”

“ _Yet,_ ” his father echoes, looking into nothing while wild-eyed. “Jesus fucking _Christ,_ Kevin.” 

Slowly, Kevin pushes himself up to sit against the headboard, the memory of Andrew’s mouth still heavy on his own. “They’re not— that bad.”

“They’re _Andrew_ and _Neil,_ ” Wymack points out as if Kevin didn’t already know. “When did that happen?”

Kevin purses his lips. “Halloween.” But it’s not right, either, so he amends — “Boston.”

His father makes a strangled sound. “Go,” he says, opening the door abruptly, “I don’t have it in me to know any more. You’re free. Go.” But it’s not enough, and Wymack knows this. When Kevin hesitates, he sighs out, “No one is angry at you, Kevin. Go meet your friends or I swear to God I’ll have you sleeping on the street.”

There is nothing else to do. Kevin does as he’s told, slipping out of the room easily, and finds that Andrew had gone downstairs to wait in the car. A fair reaction, Kevin will give him that — he would not want to be Andrew in this moment, as awkward as Kevin’s own situation is. Wymack is his father, but not his coach anymore: not the way that he is still Andrew’s and Neil’s, which forces them to see each other every day. Kevin feels rather bad as he takes the elevator, and the feeling only eases out when he finds Andrew leaned against the hood of the Maserati, flicking his lighter on and off while staring into nothing.

He doesn’t spare Kevin a glance as Kevin approaches him, but the flicking gets less fidgety. 

“Well,” Kevin starts, also leaning against the Maserati, “now he knows.” Andrew doesn’t reply, though, so he hums: “Sorry.”

“I should have locked the damn door,” is what Andrew says, which is as good of a dismissal of Kevin’s apology as any. He flickers the lighter on one, two, three times before prompting, “Talk.”

“It’s okay,” comes Kevin’s blunt reply. “He doesn’t understand, but he’s not angry.”

“He has no reason to be.”

"No," Kevin agrees, "he doesn't." He tentatively leans back against the Maserati, using his elbows to support himself, before announcing, "I'm not embarrassed about it. I'm embarrassed about the circumstances in which he found out, but— He’d know, eventually. It was just sooner than later."

"Which defeats the entire purpose of the boundaries you have settled," Andrew points out flatly.

"Maybe," Kevin concedes.

Andrew flickers the lighter on and off. “You keep saying that,” he points out, monotone, and Kevin wonders just how much Andrew wants a cigarette right now. In the same way Kevin wants a drink, every now and then, he supposes — viciously, frantically, and yet filled with self-disappointment. “‘ _It’ll happen eventually_ ’ to things you say no to.”

“I find it useless to try and deny things I can’t control.”

This time Andrew fidgets with the lighter for a longer time before replying, “You have not changed one bit.”

“That is not true,” Kevin disagrees, frowning. “If you want to be delusional and assume you can control every little thing that happens to you, go ahead, but I am my own person and I will not jump through hoops to please you.”

“Is that your answer to everything? You are your own person and you do not owe me anything?”

“Is it not the truth?”

Andrew sighs out, longsuffering. “It is,” he says, but there is a small quirk to the corner of his mouth, barely visible. “I wonder who taught you that.”

And while Kevin normally would not say it — would not bring up Kayleigh at all, and much less to Andrew, of all people —, the words are out of his mouth long before he can stop them, “My mom did, and fuck you for expecting anyone else.”

“Do send mother dearest my good fortune,” Andrew hums, but for once, it falls flat — he must be too distracted to land a jab at Kevin, or just doesn’t care enough to do it. “You still have not convinced me that you know what no means.”

“It is still very egocentric of you to think that you have that much power over me.”

“Kevin.”

“Andrew.”

Kevin knows Andrew will never say that it’s out of concern that they keep having these conversations about consent and autonomy, but maybe he should, one day, because it gets boring to have the same quarrel time and again. Kevin sighs, positioning himself between Andrew’s feet and carefully holding on to the hems of his jacket to get his attention. “Look at me,” he asks, tugging until Andrew does. A lot of distance between them, still: both physical and metaphorical. “You’re talking to me like I’m dumb. If that is how you see me, Andrew, then you can truly, wholeheartedly, go fuck yourself.” 

Andrew grabs at his wrists to keep them in place, keeping Kevin close in the process, but otherwise listens. “Do you ever hear the way that you speak? If I tell you I can handle myself, you will sit back and agree, because that is what I do when you tell me you can handle yourself.” Kevin sighs once more, for good measure, then gently brushes his thumb along Andrew’s armband. “I will not have you holding responsibility over everything that happens to me. I wanted you to kiss me and I asked for it. I want you to kiss me and I ask for it. If you can’t do this without feeling as if it grants you some kind of undeserved control, then we can’t have this at all.”

“I do not think,” Andrew grits out, “that it gives me control. What I think is that you are too used to handing it over.”

“Planning on doing something bad with it?”

“No.”

“That’s all I have to hear.” He cranes his head down to stare at Andrew. “We are too old to be having these quarrels. It is okay to shut me up with a hard kiss every once in a while.” 

The look he sends Kevin is unimpressed, but not unwilling. “You cannot solve an issue by getting kissed until you forget what year it is.”

“And you cannot solve any of my issues at all,” Kevin hums quietly, leaning back on the heels of his feet to maintain the distance between them. He purses his lips, considering, before putting out, “I will promise it for your sake, if you want me to.”

It’s enough to catch Andrew’s attention. He motions Kevin to continue, and Kevin, impatient, goes straight to the point: “I promise I’ll never tell you a yes I don’t mean. That goes beyond just physical touch. I’ll never let us fall back into what we were before.”

Andrew studies him for what feels like an entire lifetime, then slowly draws out, letting go of Kevin’s wrists, “I will never take advantage of your trust.” He stops, then adds, solemn: “I will never make you do something you do not want to do.”

“I know, Andrew,” Kevin easily replies, because he would not have said yes if he did not know in the first place. He steps out of Andrew’s space, pushing back on his heels, but Andrew hooks his fingers on Kevin’s belt loops to keep him in place. “As much as I want to find out what comes after this, we still have to go.”

“They are watching Christmas movies. I am in no urge to go back.”

Rolling his eyes, Kevin lets Andrew tug him closer. “You,” he points out, eyes darting to Andrew’s hands, “have some issues if your first idea after an argument is making out.”

“Abram’s fault.”

In spite of himself, Kevin smirks. “Oh, I’ve seen it.” 

Andrew pulls harshly on his belt loops. “Get into the car. We’re going.”

“Finally,” he replies, using his hands to unhook Andrew’s fingers away from him. Kevin climbs in the backseat in silence, and only breaks it when Andrew is on the driver’s seat beside him, already starting the car. “Alright?” he asks.

Andrew rolls his eyes, but confirms, “Alright.”

And Kevin just has to hope that they are. 

  
  
  
  
  


In hindsight, he should’ve seen this coming. 

Andrew is a terrible liar. 

Neil’s entire life is made up of making scheme after scheme. 

The only thing Kevin got right was that it did not, indeed, snow in the upstate — in fact, what happened mid-ride was quite the opposite: light rain started drizzling against the Maserati’s rooftop, hypnotic _tap-tap-tap-tap-tap_ , and Kevin found himself leaning his head against the window, eyes closed. Unknowing; naive; dense as a rock by the words of the man beside him. 

With the pouring rain, came the empty campus parking lot. That wasn’t unusual: most students had already moved out for winter break, and the few ones who stayed probably did not plan to catch a ride in the middle of the freezing South Carolina rain, gaining more pressure as Andrew parks the Maserati in its usual spot, but doesn’t unlock the doors. 

And, well, Kevin isn’t stupid, but he is trusting. Presuming Andrew wanted to wait until the heavy rain lightened ever so slightly was just what anyone would do in his situation. 

He thinks: _This isn’t unusual._

Then, he sees the orange blur cutting through the parking lot in the windshield, and he thinks: _Someone with an umbrella. That is normal._

The orange blur has auburn hair and blue eyes and tanned skin — okay. Neil is bringing them an umbrella. Even better.

Neil doesn’t come to greet them, though: on the contrary, he stops just a few feet from the hood of the Maserati, covered not by an umbrella but by an obnoxious-looking orange raincape, the ones the university provides them for away games. He smiles a sharp grin in their direction, the image of it foggy from the rain, and it’s what makes Kevin ask, “What the fuck is he doing in the rain?”

But Andrew doesn’t answer. That is the first red flag. 

The second is Neil pulling out a megaphone. 

Kevin’s face pales in horror. “Andrew, _no._ ”

But there is nothing Andrew can do, either, and his reply is a mere amused huff, eyes trained to the obnoxious orange blur that belongs to the both of them. 

Neil brings the megaphone to his mouth. Kevin physically cringes before the words are even out of his mouth, but they don’t come out understandable for a while, and Kevin has to turn to Andrew to ask, “What is he saying?”

Andrew rolls his eyes.

Reaches for the button that opens Kevin’s window. It automatically rolls down. 

“—So maybe if you stopped being a fucking asshole,” comes Neil’s voice from the megaphone, strident but not enough to be heard over the rain. Kevin thinks this had to be premeditated, but nowadays he’s learned that sometimes circumstances just add up perfectly. “I wouldn’t have to be doing this. But I am. Because you’re a fucking asshole.”

Kevin puts his head out of the window, blinking in Neil’s direction, which just seems to encourage him further. “I am allergic to flowers,” his voice thunders through the parking lot in time with the pouring rain, “and I hate loud music. _This_ is as good as it’s going to get.”

“What are you doing?” Kevin tries to yell back, but he doesn’t think Neil can hear it.

“I have no idea what you’re saying,” Neil replies, squinting through the rain to stare back at Kevin. “I can’t hear you right now.”

“Get out of the fucking rain!”

“What part of I can’t hear you do you not understand?”

Kevin pushes against the door handle, but it’s locked. Premeditated. Neil continues, “You, Kevin Day, are the stupidest motherfucker in the entire planet. I have never met a man so self-centered and obsessive and egocentric as you, and that is coming from _me._ You are a man of _so many_ issues that I really don’t have the time to list them off right now.” He sighs so loudly on the megaphone it makes Kevin flinch, but he doesn’t think he could ever stop looking at Neil, even if he wanted to. “And yet. And _yet._ ” 

Neil grits his teeth. Kevin doesn’t know if it’s annoyance or just the plain cold. “And yet I want you like crazy. Unfortunately so." He runs a hand over his face, clearing it of raindrops. "And yet I am here, and you are there, and Andrew somewhat approves this message. So will you,” he squints at Kevin, “or will you not give it up for once in your miserable life and _be mine?_ ”

Kevin blinks at him, then pulls his head back inside the Maserati to turn to Andrew, “If he knows he can’t hear my answer, why is he asking?”

Andrew looks unmoved. “He never claimed to be smart.”

He puts his head back outside, and tries to beckon Neil closer, movements clumsy under the rain. For _once,_ Neil listens to him — Kevin watches with a violent heartbeat as he approaches the Maserati, leaning down to be the same height as Kevin’s window, and Kevin grabs the front of his raincape so tightly he thinks he is scared Neil might slip away if he doesn’t. “ _Yes_ ,” he snarls, pulling him as close as possible through the car window, “ _yes,_ I’ll fucking give it up for once in my miserable life, but _get out of the rain._ Get into the damn car, Josten.”

Neil’s next grin is neither beautiful nor soft — it’s, instead, all teeth. But love can be this, Kevin thinks: it can be more bite than bark. “Finally,” he gloats, but does as he is told and climbs into the backseat after discarding the raincape to the ground at Andrew’s request. 

His hair is soaked and his skin could freeze even the hottest pits of Hell, but it doesn’t keep Kevin from jumping on the backseat and shoving his own sweater over Neil’s head roughly, barely giving him the time of the day before he is all but drowning in Kevin’s top. “You are so fucking stupid,” Kevin reprimands, fussing over the hem and feeling Andrew’s amused gaze burn through his nape; a warm feeling. “What is your fucking problem? You never listen to me but for _this_ you choose to do it? What is wrong with you?”

“Dropped on his head as a kid,” Andrew suggests, though he is intently monitoring the way Neil seems to be slowly warming up through Kevin’s sweater, his lips going from mild blue to a softer shade of red as Kevin’s body warmth reaches him. 

“Not dropped,” Neil corrects, smile frozen on his lips, “probably kicked. Realistically, punched.”

“ _Stop,_ ” Kevin reprimands. He shoves Neil to his chest and wraps his arms around his shoulders, chin leaning on the top of his head and hands sliding down his back to warm it up. “Stop. You’re freezing. What the _fuck_ is wrong with you?”

Muffled against Kevin’s chest, Neil points out, “You literally just heard Andrew. Are you deaf?”

“Shut the fuck up or I’ll make you.”

Neil laughs against the fabric of Kevin’s undershirt. “Now would be a good time to fulfill that promise of climbing me in the back of the Maserati.”

Kevin huffs in disbelief. “Andrew—”

“—Is interested in the outcome,” Andrew flatly completes Kevin’s sentence for him, elbow leant against the passenger seat as he stared at them. “Lest you do not want to.”

“I’m not kissing you when you’re freezing.”

“Who said anything about kissing? What could give me more body warmth than you on top of me?”

Kevin closes his eyes.

Counts to ten in English, French and Japanese.

Loses it at _sept_. 

More careful than Kevin has ever been before in his life, he arranges Neil under him, taking stock of violet-hued nails and cold skin as he slides his knee over Neil’s lap, keeping his weight on his own legs and hovering just above Neil’s thighs. Neil easily pulls him down with a hand on his waist, making all of Kevin’s weight fall upon him, and snakes his other hand behind Kevin's back.

Enveloping Neil’s freezing palm in his, over where it sat on Kevin's waist, he dryly says, “Don’t send Andrew a thumbs up behind my back.”

Neil bites down on his smile. “No promises.”

Needless to say, Kevin doesn’t keep his word, and he eventually does kiss Neil’s freezing lips ( _To warm them up,_ Neil points out, irrefutable logic from a genius man), Andrew’s forehead tentatively leaning against his back as he does so. 

Belonging _with_ instead of belonging _to_ is a curious feeling, but Kevin thinks he is past the time of denying how much he wants it. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and she is done :] i was thinking i'd maybe make an entire speech thanking people for reading and liking tnoftg but i just am not the kind of person who does that. so, instead, i want to say it was very nice while it lasted, and that its probably not the end of this story as we know it. i do plan on getting around to a sequel hopefully next year, and i have another kandreil fic in the process of being made, so dont miss me too much :]  
> i'm dayurno on tumblr in case you want to reach out, and as always have a good day!

**Author's Note:**

> if you got here i am pleased to tell you that not only this fic is entirely written (and obscenely long!) but i am too impatient to have one update per week so i've settled on an update each five days for my best enjoyment of the serotonin that comes from pumping out kandreil content. i shall see you in exactly five days from now. go take a walk while you wait <3  
> also, in regards to pov alternating: three chapters for each one of them. first three for neil, next andrew, then finally kevin.  
> if you must tell me anything or have any question about how this trainwreck will go down, my (sigh) aftg sideblog is dayurno.tumblr.com! you may also find some snippets for what to wait for this fic under the tag #the name of the game, but be mindful that there are plenty of Revelations that might be considered spoilers


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